


You Never Walk Alone

by KittenSmitten



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Anal Sex, Angst, Barebacking, Bullying, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Dirty Jokes, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hajime loves him anyway, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I REGRET NOTHING, Kuroo's got a cameo but he's literally just a cat, Loneliness, M/M, Minor Violence, More Fluff, Oikawa Tooru is a Nerd, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, but it's super lowkey, cause i'm a sucker for fluff, cute boyfriends being boyfriendy, minor depression, things get better I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:39:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenSmitten/pseuds/KittenSmitten
Summary: Tooru spends a large chunk of his time by himself.What he needs to remember is that he's not alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mysoulrunswithwolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysoulrunswithwolves/gifts).



> For Kiki, who pushes me to write more, to write better, every day. I hope this story does that inspiration justice. <33
> 
> **Please read the tags for warnings about potential triggers! I'd much rather you be safe than sorry, friends.
> 
> I figured the story was gonna be around 12-15k words when I was done with it. Instead, when it was done with me, it weighed in at 45k. Chapters 1 & 2 are a little dark... I never intended them to be. The story that came out is not at all the one I sat down to write. That said, I'm 110% in love with it. I hope you fall in love with it, too.

 

Tooru is seven years old when he’s beaten up for the first time. He’s always been a bit gangly and uncoordinated, and that, combined with his thick-framed glasses and his exuberant love for astronomy (mostly because he wants to discover aliens when he grows up), singles him out as easy prey.

The three boys that beat him up are two years older, brawnier, and meaner, and while this is the first time they physically hurt him, they’ve been picking on him for a good long while now.

They don’t hurt him much, the first time—they’re only _nine_ , so they don’t have the strength to do real, lasting damage—but they steal his green alien backpack, rip it open, careless of the fragile zipper, and toss his homework all over the playground equipment before pushing him to the ground.

When they kick him in the side to a chorus of _loser_ and _nerd_ , he curls into a little ball and whimpers, and they snort in disgust at his timidity and leave.

He resolves to be timid all the time from then on out, in hopes that they’ll let him be.

Tooru takes a moment to wipe the tears and snot from his face, and sits up slowly, sore and sure to bruise. He collects his homework paper by paper, dusting it off as best as he can, and turns to walk the rest of the way home, regretting his shortcut through the park.

When he gets there, the small apartment is empty, as usual. His mom is likely working another double shift, but she’s stocked the kitchen cupboards with single-serving pudding cups—a real treat. He’ll make himself a sandwich for dinner later, but for now, Tooru grabs a chocolate flavored pudding with a weary smile.

He fetches a spoon next, and sits down on the floor with his back to the cabinets to eat his snack and try to fix the zipper on his backpack.

He manages it with pudding-fueled patience and a little determination.

 

***

 

By the time Tooru is eight, he’s learned how to avoid the bullies, how to distract them and redirect their attention away from himself. For the most part, anyway.

He still comes home with the occasional bruise, like when they punch him in the face for refusing to give up his alien mask that he brought for the school Halloween party. He tries to run away, but they catch up to him when he stumbles, and that’s the end of his escape.

He ends up with a black eye, a new, unpleasant sort of mask, their knuckles catching his cheekbone just right and producing a blossom of dark red almost immediately. They rip his alien backpack open again for their now-ceremonial scattering of his school supplies and homework, before laughing and parting to go to their own homes, his alien mask cracked and crumpled in their hands.

Apparently, a visible bruise is satisfying enough for them to stop after one hit.

He gathers his things, makes a mournful noise when he can’t find his eraser—the shortest bully likes to chuck that as far as he can—and heads home. He’s long since realized that it doesn’t matter _what_ route he takes to get there. He’s not a target of convenience; he’s a target by _choice_.

He completes his shortcut through the park and hugs his backpack a bit closer to his tummy. He’s not sure if it’s his shield, or if he’s shielding it, but holding it tighter to him makes him feel better.

A different apartment than last year’s is home now (the rent increased and his mother’s paycheck stayed the same), so the kitchen is a bit smaller. His afternoon snacks sit out on the countertop instead of being tucked away behind a cupboard door, but he doesn’t mind. They’re easier to get to.

It’s individual packets of mini breadsticks with a cheese dipping sauce this week, and Tooru slouches on the floor, fixing his backpack with well-placed safety pins and sucking the cheese off the breadstick hanging from between his lips, unaware that the bruise darkening on his face was already so prominent.

 

***

 

It’s two days after the punch-to-the-face incident when his mom sees his black eye for the first time.

School’s out for a long weekend because of teacher conferences or something, so Tooru’s been spending a lot of time in his room, reading books about aliens and bugs and friendship. His favorite book series is one called Rocky’s Adventures, and it’s about a boy—named Rocky, of course—that does all sorts of cool things, like investigating Area 51 for clues about _extraterrestrials_ and hunting for stag beetles with a friend he makes while camping.

Tooru likes Rocky’s friend a lot. He’s a twiggy boy named River, and while he reminds Tooru of himself, River’s learned to _stand up for himself_ , especially against Rocky, who’s really nice most of the time but can be kinda gruff and mean every once in a while.

Tooru’s fascinated, and reads that specific book three times in as many days, even going so far as to take notes on how to stand his ground. Not _in_ the book, mind you. It’s a library book, and he has to return it on Monday when school resumes. He gets a fresh notebook out for his notes, and smooths the paper carefully in between each bullet point.

He finishes a chapter, still lying in bed in his pajamas while the morning sun trickles in through his blinds, and realizes that his stomach is gurgling, so he gets up, pulls on some socks (it’s not really _that_ cold yet, but compared to his nest of blankets, the thin carpeting in his bedroom is _chilly_ ), and Tooru shuffles out to the kitchen to find some breakfast.

He digs around in the refrigerator, finds an apple, and then heads for the cupboards to find the instant oatmeal packets. He rifles through them quietly, grinning when he finds a peach flavored one—they’re the best, really. He tears the packet open and dumps it into a clean bowl, and turns on the squeaky tap as gently as he can to add water to the mixture, aware that his mom’s still asleep on the pullout couch just fifteen feet away. He’s determined to avoid waking her because she came in so _late_ from her last shift at the hospital, and she’s always so tired and today’s her first day off in seven days, so she deserves to sleep until she wakes naturally—

Tooru _eep_ s quietly when he realizes he’s overfilled his bowl with water. He pours some of it back out, carefully straining it with his fingers to keep from losing too much of the oatmeal, and puts the dish in the microwave.

He grimaces with each beep as he sets the microwave for a minute and thirty seconds and hits start, already regretting his breakfast choice for all the _noise_ it is making. He should have had toast instead. The toaster may be just as loud as the microwave, but at least it only makes a ruckus _once_ , when the toast pops up.

He watches the countdown on the microwave as it cooks his oatmeal, focused on pulling the door open and stopping the clock before it can tick down to nothing and beep incessantly. He tugs the door open with a second to spare and presses the ‘reset’ button to clear the clock, but when he turns around to sit at their small table and eat, he realizes his efforts are pointless.

His mom is standing quietly in the doorway, leaning against the frame and smiling softly. The robe that he found on clearance for her for Christmas last year (it has _shooting stars_ on it and was too good to pass up) is wrapped gently around her shoulders. She’s watching him with love in her eyes, but as he returns the gesture, her smile slips off her face and the love in her eyes churns with concern.

“Tooru,” she gasps, rushing to him and kneeling down in front of him, touching her long, delicate fingers to his face. “What _happened_?”

Tooru twists and reaches over to put his oatmeal down on the counter—the bowl was getting _hot_ to hold onto—and turns to fold his arms around her shoulders. “It was just an accident in the park, Mom,” he says carefully. It’s not a lie. It was an accident that he’d stumbled, and that had led to his getting punched in the face, but she did _not_ need to know that. She works so hard to take care of him, and he doesn’t want to worry her by letting her think that he can’t take care of himself.

He tucks his face in her neck and squeezes tightly, hiding his now-purpling bruise and trying to convey with his actions just how much he appreciates her, and adds, “It’s okay, really. It doesn’t even hurt.” If he doesn’t touch it. Not much, anyway.

“Are you sure?” she asks, pulling him back just enough to study his face. Her eyes land on his black eye again, and she adds softly, “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

He nods solemnly. He would definitely tell her if he couldn’t handle it. He’s pretty sure he can, though.

She looks at him for a moment more, reading his expression carefully before enveloping him in a hug and squeezing tightly. Then she says, “How about we go to the Discovery Center today?”

Tooru’s head snaps up to look at her and his excitement level skyrockets so quickly that he’s practically vibrating in place. “Really?! They have a new Space room, where you can pilot a spaceship through the solar system, and—”

His mother laughs, a sweet sound that he never, ever wants to forget, a soft tinkling like the bells that chime when you walk into a restaurant or a gas station, high and clear and _happy_ , and she says, “Yes, _really_. C’mon, eat your oatmeal while it’s still warm, and then get dressed. I’ll shower fast, and then we’ll go.” She glances at the clock, and says, “If we hurry we can be there right when they open, and you can be the first astronaut to search for aliens in the solar system today.”

Tooru practically prances to the table to eat, shoveling in spoonful after spoonful of his oatmeal, forgetting that it’s peach flavor and that he’d normally savor it.

 

***

 

The next week at school, Tooru’s teacher assigns the class a science project that has him floating on cloud nine. They have to bring in something from home that’s important to them, and give a report on a kind of science that it’s related to.

He knows just what he’s going to bring in—the poster of the solar system that his mom bought for him in the gift shop of the Discover Center over the weekend. It’s _huge_ and has all kinds of details and facts right on it, like how many moons Jupiter has (it’s 67, and that’s only the ones that they _know_ about) and how wide Saturn’s rings are (175,000 miles, but they’re only 3,200 feet thick, which _sounds_ like a lot, but it isn’t even a whole mile, so the rings are _crazy_ thin in comparison to how wide they are).

He’s a bit nervous about transporting the poster to and from school for his presentation, but he remembers that River was brave enough to stand up for himself and protect what he loves, and Tooru decides that he can be, too.

After all, this project requires something important to him, and he’s determined to get an A.

 

***

 

His presentation is scheduled for the following Tuesday, and with trepidation, he takes the poster down from the wall and carefully rolls it up, sliding it to safety in the sturdy cardboard tube that he’d brought it home in. He leaves for school a little early so that he’ll be sure to get to his classroom before the rest of the kids—and the bullies—start to arrive.

When it’s his turn to talk about his important item, his teacher helps him unfurl his poster, and uses a handful of magnets to stick it to the chalkboard. Tooru tells his classmates about what astronomy is, about how Neptune can get as cold as -360° Fahrenheit, and how temperatures on Venus, the hottest planet, can get as high as 824° even though it’s not the closest planet to the sun. And how Pluto’s not a planet anymore, which is kind of sad, but they’ve found a _new_ ninth planet which is way cool, because it was always there, but they only _just_ discovered it.

Afterward, as he goes back to his seat, his poster tucked back in its tube, Tooru catches his teacher smiling at his enthusiasm, and his grin widens. He definitely nailed it.

 

***

 

His happiness stretches through the whole day, until the bell rings and classes are dismissed and it’s time to go home. He rushes to grab his things, tugs his jacket mostly on, and makes a break for the door, hoping that, if he gets out fast enough, he can sprint the whole way home and not run into any...problems.

He does run into problems. Three of them. Waiting for him right outside the front entrance. He steels himself, remembering that River was brave and so is he, and Tooru marches out the door to face his fear.

He walks right past the bullies, not bothering to look at them, holding his poster tube almost carelessly in an effort to make it seem unimportant in their eyes.

A scuffling noise behind him, and then the three of them are walking _with_ him, catching him off guard by this new tactic. He panics slightly, before realizing that they’ll probably behave as long as there are other people around. He keeps walking, choosing busy streets that take him in the general direction of home, and they keep following.

They seem to figure out what he’s up to when his path takes him nowhere near the park they normally torment him in, and Tooru’s panic returns when he realizes that they might actually follow him the whole way home. To his empty apartment.

Terror streaks up his spine as he thinks about them knowing where he lives, knowing that he’s usually there alone. His anxiety starts to bleed through his carefully constructed calm exterior, and he needlessly pushes his glasses up his nose, unable to contain his nervous tick.

Maybe he can find a public place to stay for a while? Like a gas station—no, the attendant wouldn’t think anything of four elementary school boys hanging out together, and he’d have to leave with them eventually. Maybe a library would work. Someplace he could sit down and wait them out.

He doesn’t get the opportunity.

The biggest of the three boys, the ring leader, snakes his arm around Tooru’s shoulders and steers him into a narrow alley between residential buildings. Tooru’s fear sinks into his stomach and he prepares to defend himself in any way he can.

“So, Oikawa,” the leader says, “you must think you’re pretty smart leading us around in circles, huh?”

“N-no,” Tooru stutters, knowing that if he doesn’t answer, they’ll beat him for thinking he’s above responding. “I’m j-just going h-home.”

“I’m j-just going h-home,” one of the other boys sneers, his tone pinched nasally to mock Tooru. Tooru closes his eyes, knowing what’s coming next.

“Let’s see your bag, nerd. Got anything good in there this time?”

“Probably not,” another sniggers. “Can’t afford anything good. Lookit, he’s still wearing the same dumpy old glasses as always. Mommy and Daddy can’t buy you new ones, Tooru?”

Tooru twitches at the mention of his father—his father, who _died_ when Tooru was little, who left him and his mother to fend for themselves, whom Tooru doesn’t even _remember—_ and Tooru suddenly remembers that River stood up for himself.

“It’s none of your business,” he spits out quickly, before he can regret it. “Maybe I _like_ these glasses.”

The three bullies go still, the calm before the storm, and Tooru suddenly realizes his mistake. Dread explodes darkly in his gut, a mushroom cloud of panic and bile.

The thing about River’s bravery is that he is always standing up to _Rocky_ , who genuinely likes him. Who is never mean or malicious with intent to hurt.

These boys are not Rocky, and Tooru isn’t River, and he doesn’t have anyone to help him like the two friends help each other when they are in trouble, and _—_

Then he would just have to help himself. Without really thinking about it, Tooru swings his poster tube like a sword at the nearest bully, knocking him on the side of the head with it. Not hard enough to injure the boy, but certainly hard enough to stun him a bit. Or maybe it’s just Tooru’s daring that stuns him. Tooru doesn’t take the time to figure it out.

The other two pounce on Tooru, tackling him to the dirty pavement and wrestling his poster tube away. His fingers instinctively scrabble to get it back, and Tooru thinks that’s just the stupidest thing. Surely his subconscious mind should be prioritizing _his_ safety over that of the poster?

He understands his instincts when his bullies turn his impromptu weapon against him, hitting him on the back of the head and the shoulders and the lower back. He curls up in the fetal position, but a particularly nasty _thwack_ to his buttocks makes him jerk, his arms losing their grip on his shins, and he unfolds. 

The leader of the small-minded boys takes his opportunity to kick Tooru’s right knee, and it twists viciously, making Tooru cry out loudly at the sharp flames under his skin that lick up his knee.

“Shit!” one of them swears, and the bullies drop his poster tube on the ground and take off, one of them stepping on his throbbing knee with his full weight as he runs over Tooru to get away.

Already deep in the pain, Tooru only whines out a little sob, and curls back up into a tiny ball. It’s twenty minutes before he gets to his feet and limp home, dirty and tear-streaked, and utterly beaten in more ways than one.

In the fight, the bullies hit him—or the ground, but with the way he feels, probably him—with the poster tube hard enough to bend it slightly, and it’s dented in one spot, too. When he’s finally settled on a kitchen chair, a baggie of ice wrapped tightly against his swelling knee, he works up enough courage to pull the poster from the tube.

It’s creased in several places, and an inch-and-a-half long tear starts from the top of the left edge and winds its way through the image of the sun.

Sniffling, Tooru finds a disposable tape dispenser and patches his poster back up, tacking the tear closed with a carefully applied length of clear tape—on the back side. He doesn’t want the matte finish of the tape to distract from the glossy finish of the poster, so tape on the backside only will have to do.

He limps to his room, and puts the poster back up where it belongs—where it should have stayed all along—before collapsing on his bed. He props his knee up in a more comfortable position using his pillow, and waits for his mom to come home.

He may not have a friend like Rocky, but he has her, and they look out for each other. It’s past time he remembered that.

 

***

 

After a three-hour long wait in the emergency room, an x-ray, and an examination by a grandfatherly doctor, Tooru is released from the hospital. His mother helps him into the taxi for the ride home, and then back out of it when they get there, holding his crutches out to him so she can pay the driver.

He shuffles awkwardly into their apartment, his mother a reassuring presence behind him, until he reaches his room.

He turns to sit on his mattress, and swings his feet up, using his pillow to cushion his knee again.

“You’re lucky that it isn’t worse,” she says, paused in the doorway and watching him, her lips pursed.

“I know,” Tooru whispers.

“Do you want to tell me what happened now that we’re home?”

He doesn’t, and he does. Tooru can tell that his mother’s just as apprehensive as he is, but she deserves to know, especially since she agreed to wait until they were home to discuss it. He definitely hadn’t wanted to tell her in the public emergency room.

He scoots sideways on his twin frame, repositioning his pillow as he goes, and his mom moves slowly away from the door to sit in the place he’s made for her next to him. He feels safe with her there.

“There are some older boys at school,” he begins, and soon the story’s tumbling out of him, and he’s telling her about the way that they’ve been hounding him for a year, and about the ways he’s learned to protect himself, and about the taunt aimed at them, his parents. His mom and his dad.

And then Tooru’s telling her how he stood up for them. For _himself_. How some things, some treasures, are worth being brave for, and as he speaks it occurs to him that the thing that makes important things _important_ isn’t its monetary worth—although the poster hadn’t been cheap, and his mom had already spent so much on their frivolous day out when she bought it for him—but the sentimental value. What the item represents.

 _That’s_ what makes it worth fighting for, and Tooru looks at the poster on his wall and decides that it’s worth more now that it’s beat up, now that it reminds him of that two-second rush of elation that came with defending himself. The high returns, tempered by the residual pain in his knee, and he knows _he_ is worth defending.

 

***

 

In the morning, his mother calls in sick to work so she can stay with him, and then calls the school. He can’t forget the way the tears glistened down her cheeks as she asked him for the names of his bullies. He gave them to her, knowing there was no point in keeping that information to himself. Especially not when the look of guilt on her face threatened to overwhelm him in guilt of his own for not saying anything sooner.

The school calls back in the afternoon, and they pause the movie they’re in the middle of so Tooru’s mother can answer. The principal tells her, and later she tells Tooru, that a couple teachers remember seeing the three boys he named following Tooru away from the school last night, and after a bit of investigation, security camera footage from a convenience store across the road from the alley showed the four of them going in, then three other boys running out, and then Tooru limping out alone a while later.

All of the bullies are to be given three weeks of suspension, the Oikawas are assured, and a community service requirement of 30 hours each to be able to return to school at the end of those three weeks.

Additionally, Tooru should take as much time as he needs for his knee to heal. There won’t be any repercussions for his own actions during the incident, or for his absences as he recuperates.

“I should hope not. And someone needs to deliver his homework to him,” Tooru’s mother says tightly before ending the call, and they return to their movie.

Tooru snuggles back into his mother’s arms, his knee not the only thing healing on the couch that afternoon, as little squeaky-toy aliens scamper across the screen.

 

***

 

His knee has been healing for five days, and Tooru’s starting to get antsy. Not because he’s tired of sitting still—he’s got plenty of books to keep him busy—but because the inflammation in the joint has gone down enough that he can walk on it without hardly any pain, and because today is _Sunday_ , and his mom is talking like maybe he should go back to school on Monday.

He doesn’t want to. He knows he has no reason to be nervous at school, since the boys that bullied him won’t be there, but the whole situation has left him with a knot of anxiety in his gut the size of a peach pit. Every time his mom brings up school again, the peach pit cracks a bit more, and tendrils of anxiety wriggle free of their confines in search of a good place to put down roots.

His mother has noticed. He doesn’t say anything, but he sees her purse her lips, and he knows that she knows.

That night, when she tucks him in, pulling his stars-and-planets comforter up close under his chin, she perches on the edge of his bed and says, “What would you think if I got a different job?”

Cozily warm and halfway to sleep, it takes Tooru a couple of seconds to process her question. Then his eyes pop open wide. “What?”

“Well. There’s a private clinic on the other side of the city that’s looking for an RN. It’s less hours, but the pay’s a little better, so it’ll almost balance out the same. Here’s the thing, though. It’s _way_ on the other side of the city. We’d have to move, and...you’d have to change schools.”

Tooru launches himself upward and throws his arms around her neck, grateful tears already filling his eyes. She’s offering this for _him_ , so that he can have a fresh start away from the kids that bullied him, so that they can have more time together, the two of them.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay, okay,” she says, and hugs him back. She laughs. “I’ve actually been looking at this job posting for week. I sent in an application and my resume the day after you were hurt, and I’ve got an interview tomorrow.”

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me before?” he giggles, flopping back down onto his bed. His wavy, brown hair tumbles around his face, and his mother reaches down to comb his locks back into place with her fingers.

Tooru closes his eyes and revels in the brush of her fingertips against his temple as his mother says, “I didn’t want to tell you until it was a sure thing. I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case it fell through. I’m sure they’re interviewing lots of people for the job, and they might not offer it to me.” Tooru’s eyes crack back open, and he frowns slightly.

“Then why are you telling me now?” he asks, suspicious.

Her lips quirk in amusement—Tooru’s no dummy, and she knows it—as she replies, “Because I think you’re nervous about going back to your school, even if those boys aren’t there right away. And it’s okay to be nervous! They hurt you for a long time, and that needs to heal just as much as your knee needed to heal. As much as it still _needs_ to heal,” she amends. She taps his right knee gently, just a ghost of pressure so can feel the touch through his blanket, before continuing. “But you can’t let your nervousness stop you from moving forward, Tooru, so I’m trying to give you something to look forward to. If I don’t get this job, I’ll look for another. I’ll keep looking, here and in other cities, until I find something.”

She meets Tooru’s eyes levelly, intent in her seriousness. “I’m making you a promise, Tooru. It’s my job to protect you, and if this is how you need protecting, then I’m going to do it. But I need a little help from you until I can make good on that promise, okay? It might take me a while to find a new job that can support us, and for us to find a different place to live that we can afford, so I need you to be strong for me for just a little bit longer, okay? Can you do that?”

Tooru nods quickly, earnestly. “I can do that,” he says. And then he closes his eyes again and groans playfully. “This means I have to be brave and go back to school tomorrow, doesn’t it?”

His mother laughs, and he smiles to hear that soft, joyous sound again. He could hear it for the rest of his life and it wouldn’t be enough. “Yes, Tooru. If you go to school, I’ll go to my interview. Is that a fair deal?”

“No,” he promptly sasses. “‘Cause you’d go anyway.”

She laughs again, and kisses him goodnight on his brow. “It’s just for a little bit,” she whispers into his hair, smoothing his bangs down with a soft touch. “I promise I’ll find us something as fast as I can.”

“Okay,” he whispers back. He kisses her cheek good night and snuggles deeper into his nest of covers. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

 

***

 

His mom doesn’t get the job at the clinic, but she keeps looking.

The days after the bullies’ return to school are tough for Tooru. The teachers watch out for him, making sure that the three boys that tormented him before don’t get close enough to bother him again while he’s on school property. One of the teachers, a kind man that teaches kindergarten, even offers to walk him home. Tooru thanks him politely, but declines.

He’s brave and his mom is working hard to find a new job, so he won’t be here much longer, he’s sure of it.

Three days after the boys resume regular attendance, however, he spots them loitering in the park, looking around as if they’re _waiting_ for someone. He luckily manages to duck behind cover and sneak away before they can see him. He _knows_ it’s luck that saved him this time around, though, and it sends a spike of fear through his stomach.

The next day, he goes back to the teacher and accepts his offer.

A week later, the kind teacher is still walking Tooru home, and Tooru’s mom is home one afternoon to witness it. She thanks him profusely for going above and beyond the call of duty and looking out for her son, and that night she spends the entire evening, from dinner to bedtime, on their old computer, searching for job listings and filling out applications.

 

***

 

Five weeks after their talk, Tooru’s mom finally finds a different job, and even then it isn’t _actually_ a different job. She secures a transfer to a different hospital four suburbs to the west. The pay will be the same, the hours will be the same, but at least the location will be something new.

Tooru’s sure that she gives in and takes it instead of continuing to look for something better because the teacher is still walking him home.

Tooru attends school for one more week after her transfer to the new hospital, and then it’s Christmas break, and the semester is over.

 

***

 

For Christmas, there are only a few small presents wrapped. They skip putting up a tree, choosing instead to focus on packing their small apartment for the day they find a new apartment. Tooru doesn’t mind. He’s excited to start fresh, even if he’ll still come home to an empty apartment more than he likes.

Tooru gives his mother three certificates for cooking dinner for the two of them and a snow globe that has a little green alien in it, all dressed up like Santa.

His mother gives him a throw pillow shaped like a flying saucer for his bed, a packet of glow-in-the-dark star stickers for his bedroom ceiling, a stack of new (used, but new to him and he doesn’t care) books about a boy who lives in the future and explores new planets for signs of life, and a big book full of facts about bugs.

She gives him one more small box to open, and he takes it carefully, pulling the ribbon off of it slowly as he peeks up at her, gauging her expression and trying to guess what’s inside. There’s a twinge of excitement in her cheek as one corner of her mouth pulls up into a crooked smile, and her eyes sparkle in anticipation.

Tooru can’t stand it anymore, and he tears the paper off recklessly, dropping it into his lap like he’s done all the other wrapping paper. He accidentally fumbles the box in his haste, dropping it into the pile of wrapping paper, and something silver and shiny comes tumbling out, with a little ribbon tied in a bow around it.

Tooru reaches to pick it up, his fingers closing around the cool, hard shape of _key_ , and his head whips up to look at his mom, his jaw hanging open in surprise and hope.

“Do you want to go see it?” she asks, and then Tooru _knows_. She’s found them a new apartment, and _they’re finally moving_.

“Yes,” he breaths. His cheeks are stretched in an impossibly wide smile.

Tooru immediately races for his boots and coat, but his mother makes him change his flannel peace-sign pajamas (because the first thing Tooru intends for the aliens to know when they arrive is that he comes in _peace_ ) for warmer, outdoor clothes first. He grumbles about how it’s slowing them down, but obeys. He can’t be sick now—they’re about to _move_.

An hour later, when the taxi slows to a stop in front of a blue house with a large tree in the front yard, he’s squealing, his nose pressed to the glass as he stares. “No waaay! You got us a _house_?!”

She laughs as he reaches with mittened hands for the door handle. “Only _half_ of one, Tooru. It’s a townhouse. We’ll have neighbors in the other half eventually.”

Tooru’s eyes are wide, and his mouth makes a little “oh” shape in understanding. Sure enough, there are two doorways side by side. It’s like two houses smushed into one.

 _Well, that’s okay,_ Tooru thinks. More than okay, actually. They have lots more neighbors in the same building as them right now, so just _one_ neighbor will probably be quieter, right? And there’s a _yard_. In the summer he can take his books outside to read sprawled in the grass, and—

“Tooru, do you wanna see the inside, or are you going to just hang out here in the cold?” his mother calls from the front step, and he runs after her.

The taxi’s still parked on the curb in front of their new apartment, and Tooru gives it a sidelong glance before dashing around the old oak tree planted smack-dab in the middle of the yard, and stomping his boots clean of the thin layer of snow he’s picked up by bypassing the sidewalk to catch up.

He notices his mom’s standing in front of the door labeled 112B—that must be their street and apartment number. The other door, labeled 112A is to their left, so Tooru figures that the right side of the house must be theirs.

“We can’t stay very long because the driver’s waiting for us and the meter’s still running,” his mom says, “But we can take a look inside. Go on,” she adds, gesturing for him to step up to the front door. “Unlock it. You’ve got your key, right?”

Tooru pulls his hand carefully out of his mitten, pulling his key out with it. His mother snorts her amusement and he pouts, his eyebrows scrunching together and his lips pursing prettily (just like his mom’s do, he knows. He looks a lot like her). “I didn’t want to lose it!” he huffs.

“We’ll get you a keychain, honey,” she replies, and Tooru beams.

He doesn’t carry a key for their current apartment—they’ve got one hidden under their doormat for him—so he’s never needed a keychain before. He carefully fits the key into the lock and turns it. The door swings open quietly, and he steps inside, pulling off his boots before he can make a mess.

He pads forward down a short hallway. There’s a coat closet here by the entryway, and ten feet further the hallway turns into a stairway up to a second floor. At the bottom of the steps, a wide arch cut into the wall on his right leads into an open living room/kitchen space. There are big windows in the living room looking out into the front yard, and windows over the kitchen sink and a sliding glass door that opened out into a large backyard.

And _the backyard_. Tooru gapes. There are tall trees growing thickly in one corner of the lot and a big, wooden playhouse is nestled up in the branches, with an escape slide into the open lawn.

His brain fizzles, stunned into white noise, as he stares at the dream brought to reality before him. “How did you _find_ this place, Mom?”

“It was kind of by accident,” she says, coming up behind him and resting her hands on his shoulders, pulling his shoulder blades back against her stomach. “I got on the wrong bus on my way home from work on my first day at the new hospital, and we drove right past this place. It had a ‘For Rent’ sign on it with a phone number, and I pulled the emergency stop cord and got off the bus to call.”

“But how is it even empty? This place is so _cool_.”

“The owner died, sweetheart. She was very old and hadn’t been able to rent this side out for a long time, because of her health. Her grandson inherited the property, and decided that renting it out was the best way to maintain it. I had to do a bit of cleaning to clear away the dust, but they gave me a good deal on the rent because I promised to help take care of it.”

“Oh,” Tooru says, sorry that the old lady died, but glad that he gets a chance to live in such an amazing place.

“Anyway!” his mother says cheerfully. “Let’s go look upstairs quick. The taxi’s still waiting.”

“Right!” Tooru chirps and dashes for the stairs.

“No running on the steps, Tooru!” she calls from behind him, and he grins, scrambling up them as fast as he dares.

The stairwell empties into another corridor. At the very top of it is a bathroom. Tooru peeks inside quickly, noting that it’s bigger than their current bathroom, and then runs down the hallway towards the bedroom doors.

There are _two_. Their current apartment only has one—his mom sleeps in the living room, and the coat closet acts as her clothes closet—but now she’ll have a bedroom for herself. This makes Tooru overwhelmingly happy.

He visually compares the two bedrooms—one next to the bathroom with windows that look into the back yard, and one at the end of the hall with windows that look into the tangle of branches of the tree in the front yard—and then yells down to his mom, “I want the bedroom in the front, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then he hears the last of the stairs creak slightly as his mother finally joins him upstairs. “Are you sure, Tooru? The other bedroom is bigger...”

“I don’t need that much space,” he says philosophically. “I’m smaller than you.”

“You won’t be forever, Tooru,” she replies, wrapping him in a soft hug.

“Doesn’t matter,” he smiles, returning the embrace.

They’re quiet for a minute or two, enjoying the moment, before Tooru’s mom tugs them in the direction of the door. On the way down the stairs, Tooru reaches for his mom’s hand and holds it, smiling up at her. “Thanks, Mom. This is the best present.”

“You’re welcome, angel. Merry Christmas.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. I named this story after BTS's newest album. (I may or may not have listened to this album eighty bajillion times in the last week.) But, hey, if the shoe fits?
> 
> As always, kudos & comments are appreciated, but most importantly, I hope you enjoyed reading. Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callie_ks) if you ever want to scream about volleydorks (or kpop, because let's be honest, BTS owns my soul). <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tooru pauses in front of his classroom door when he reaches it, and vows then and there to work his hardest to make this fresh start count. He’s going to do everything he can to make himself into the person he wants to be. He’s going to be brave, and strong, and smart, and charismatic, and he’s going to make all kinds of new friends.
> 
> He pushes his glasses up his nose, forcibly expelling the last of his nervous energy with the gesture, and crosses the threshold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so overwhelmed! Thanks for all the comments and kudos and bookmarks!! I was having a really crappy week, and you guys turned it around for me. <33
> 
> In appreciation, here's chapter 2 a day earlier than I originally intended. It's longer than chapter 1, but feels like it reads faster??
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like it! <3

 

It’s New Year’s Day, and they’ve rented a moving truck to haul their possessions to the new apartment. The fact that their fresh start begins on the first day of the new year doesn’t escape Tooru, and he’s determined to throw himself into the auspicious occasion with fervor.

They cram everything into one load—Tooru rides in the front of the truck with boxes tucked in around his feet and on his lap to make it all fit. When they’ve been unloading for half an hour, Tooru realizes he’s getting a little tired, but he refuses to give in to the feeling. Sitting on the drive over drained him of his momentum, but he figures a quick snack break would probably fix it.

He takes a moment to wonder if the box with snacks in it is still buried in the truck somewhere. He sighs a bit wistfully, and hoists another box. He trudges from the truck to the apartment, and sets the box down just inside the front door, so that he isn’t tracking slush in on his boots.

A few of his mom’s friends from work are also helping carry stuff inside, freeing his mom up to stay indoors and put boxes in the rooms they belong in. Her long, wavy, brown hair is tied up in a messy ponytail and she’s a bit red-faced from climbing the stairs so many times in a row, but she’s grinning broadly as she picks up the box Tooru just put down. The sight makes Tooru grin, too.

Two hours later, and they’re all resting on the couch, which is now settled in the living room. They’ll make sandwiches for a late lunch soon, and then take the truck to pick up a used school desk from craigslist for Tooru and a queen bedroom set his mom found for herself on clearance. Then they’ll be done with the heavy lifting, and it’ll be time to unpack and turn their apartment into a _home_.

Tooru can’t wait.

 

***

 

Somehow, in the week before Christmas, around finding their new apartment and packing their old apartment and working her new job and completing her Christmas shopping, Tooru’s mom found time to search out the local elementary school. She toured it, received reassurances regarding their strict no-bullying policy, mapped out an easy walk to and from their new home, and filled out all the necessary paperwork to transfer Tooru there at the beginning of the new semester.

Tooru learns all of this their first day in their new home, when his mom tells him that he should focus on unpacking his school things first, and, his head spinning in giddy surprise, he blurts out his utter conviction that she’s Wonder Woman in disguise.

 

***

 

The hallways of his new school are a noisy mess on the first day back to school after their Christmas break. Tooru winds his way carefully through the crowds of laughing, yelling kids towards his new classroom, eager and anxious all at once.

He’s been looking forward to this day for a while, but now that he’s here, he realizes that getting a fresh start doesn’t automatically mean that it’ll be a good one.

He pauses in front of his classroom door when he reaches it, and vows then and there to work his hardest to make this fresh start count. He’s going to do everything he can to make himself into the person he wants to be. He’s going to be brave, and strong, and smart, and charismatic, and he’s going to make all kinds of new friends.

He pushes his glasses up his nose, forcibly expelling the last of his nervous energy with the gesture, and crosses the threshold.

 

***

 

Tooru tries his best, but two weeks into the new semester it becomes clear that his new classmates are kind, but already settled into comfortable friend groups. He sits next to them at lunch and plays alongside them at recess, but none of these activities make Tooru feel like he is making friends. He feels like his classmates are being reservedly polite to him, which is better than being bullied, but not by much.

He tries to share his interests with them, telling them things he knows about their solar system, like how their sun is 4.6 billion years old, which is a _lot_ , and how the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter will make colonizing other planets easier because they could mine in it for iron and nickel and titanium and water instead of transporting all those things from Earth, and Tooru’s classmates listen politely before giggling and telling him he’s weird.

He backs off of the space facts then, because _weird_ easily turns into _nerd_ , and Tooru’s had enough of _that_ word to last him a lifetime.

He doesn’t give up, though. Tooru acknowledges the fact that the best friend he’s dreamed of isn’t in his class, but doesn’t quit trying. He refuses to. He’s brave, and strong, and smart, and charismatic, and someday he’s going to make all kinds of new friends.

 

***

 

In the meantime, Tooru finds an old friend in the school’s library. They have all of the Rocky’s Adventure books that Tooru’s read and loved before, and a few that he hasn’t. He checks them out immediately, starting with book one again.

He spends his free time reading—and sometimes washing dishes and folding laundry, because it makes him feel like the best son in the world when his mom comes home from a long shift and smiles gratefully at him because the little household chores are already finished—but mostly he reads. He starts from the beginning of Rocky’s story, absorbing again each of his favorite adventures.

As always, every time he opens another book to embark on an adventure with Rocky, he feels an intense longing. Tooru quietly spends a minute wishing that Rocky was real, and that Tooru could go with him to solve the case of the missing painting, or to summer camp where he could roast marshmallows over campfires and learn to swim in the lake.

Then he sighs, locking it away, turns to the first page of chapter one, and immerses himself in his favorite alternate reality.

When he’s reread all his old favorites and is ready to dive into the first of the titles that he hasn’t read before, Tooru takes a moment to savor the bitter-sweetness of his anticipation. He’s ready to join his old friend for a new journey, even if none of it is real.

 

***

 

Valentine’s Day is nearing when Tooru’s teacher assigns them a creative project: write a short story about love. Tooru’s a little concerned about how he’s going to complete this project, because the concept of love is _terrifying_.

The boys and girls is his class are all kinds of excited. They cast shy glances at each other, and the girls giggle behind their hands, and the boys cluster around a table during lunchtime to talk about which girl is cutest, and Tooru...is completely uninterested.

He supposes that the girls in his class are nice enough, but he certainly doesn’t have a _crush_ on any of them. In fact, he’s never even _thought_ about having a crush on any of them.

As he walks home that night, Tooru wracks his brain for an idea for the story and comes up empty-handed. It’s frustrating, and his frustration doesn’t fade until his mom gets home. He gets out the ingredients for spaghetti for supper, and, after she changes into yoga pants and a sweatshirt, they cook together.

It’s his mom’s job to start the water boiling, while Tooru wields the can opener. He opens the stewed tomatoes, then dumps them out into a bowl and fetches a butter knife. The tomato chunks are soft enough after the canning process that his dull knife can cut them in half, and he sets to work quickly, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates.

The noodles go into the boiling water, and Tooru’s mom pours the can of sauce and Tooru’s tomato chunks into a saucepan to heat. Tooru fetches the bread and separates three slices from the loaf. He butters and sprinkles garlic powder on both sides, and then plunks them down a bit haphazardly onto a cookie sheet that his mom holds out.

She sets the oven to a low temp and slide the soon-to-be garlic bread in, and Tooru turns to start setting the table.

They make small talk as they work—Tooru’s mom tells him about her day, about how the little girl with pneumonia can laugh without coughing now, and how the elderly lady with the broken leg has been crafting Valentine’s Day decorations non-stop because she thinks there isn’t enough cheer on their hospital floor—and at the mention of the holiday, Tooru is reminded again of the story that he has no idea how to write.

“Mom, what is love like?” he asks suddenly, sure that his mom will have the answer, if anyone does.

She looks at him a little funnily, and answers, “Do you mean romantic love?”

He nods.

“Hmm,” she replies. “It’s wanting to be closer to someone, even when they’re already right there, and missing them when they’re not. It’s knowing with certainty that the rest of your life will be better if you spend it with that person. It’s wanting to kiss them and hug them and snuggle up on the couch together to watch movies. It’s letting go of little things that bother you, like when they don’t rinse their dishes after dinner, or when they leave their wet towel on the bathroom floor—”

“Hey!” Tooru interrupts. He pouts and says, “You’re just talking about how you love _me_. That’s not _romantic_.”

His mom laughs and stirs the spaghetti sauce, before turning off both the stove burners. “No, it’s not,” she says. “But it’s very similar. Romantic love is all of those ways that I love you, plus feeling like you belong with that person, no matter what. Like they are the piece of you that you didn’t realize was missing until you met them.”

She pauses, pulling the strainer from the cabinet and pouring the noodles into it before dumping them back in the pot. “There’s more to it than that,” she adds, “but it’s hard to explain with words.” She smiles at him as she sets the food on the table and they sit down. “I hope that you can experience it for yourself someday.”

Tooru frowns to himself as he scoops noodles onto his plate. “Someday won’t be soon enough,” he mutters, and reaches for the sauce spoon.

“What?” his mom asks, startled. “Tooru, what is this about?”

He sighs, “I have to write a story about love for school, and I don’t know how.” He sinks his fork into his spaghetti and twirls it ruthlessly.

Tooru thinks he sees a moment of relief flits across his mom’s face, and then she says, “Well, there are more kinds of love than just romantic love, honey. Did your teacher say it has to be romantic love?”

This question surprises Tooru, and he pauses to think back to the assignment. “No,” he answers slowly, “She just said that it had to be about love.”

His mom smiles. “Does that help?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he replies before shoving his laden fork in his mouth. He’s going to have to think about this some more. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, honey,” she smiles, reaching for the grated parmesan. “Here—do you want some sprinkle cheese?”

 

***

 

The next day, Tooru spends his recess sitting in a snowbank, idly packing snowballs for the other boys to throw back and forth as he thinks about the different kinds of love. Really, he wants to write about the kind of friendship that Rocky and River have, but he knows that friendship is different than love, so he focuses on his other options.

Finally, he settles on an idea that’s both friendship _and_ love. He smiles quietly over his compromise with himself, and launches a snowball at an unsuspecting classmate.

Tooru races home from school that night and plunks himself down at his desk. His story is due in three days, and he’s determined to begin writing it tonight, while the idea is fresh.

As long as he can sit down and concentrate, he doesn’t think he’ll have any problems getting out the story he wants to tell.

Well. Except for finding a pencil. Did he leave his at school? He rifles through his backpack unsuccessfully before turning to his desk drawer. Surely there are some extras in there...

He doesn’t find a pencil, but his eyes light up when he pulls a pen with a printed starry sky pattern on it. He has no idea where it came from, but it’s _glorious_ , and he’s going to use it. He’ll just be extra careful not to make any mistakes.

 

***

 

_Once upon a time a young prince was cursed to do a rotten chore. His mother, a sweet and caring queen, told him to take out the garbage._

_But t_ _he young prince hated taking out the garbage so he put it off. Night after night, the garbage piled up, and the rotten chore became a stinky one._

_Finally, the queen yelled at the young prince to just take the garbage out!_

“ _But Mother! It smells so bad! I won’t touch it!” the prince declared._

“ _It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t let it pile up” she said. “It’s your punishment for delaying your responsibility! Take it out now or there won’t be any horseback rides through the royal forest!” The prince gave in with a pout. Horseback riding was too fun to give up so he pinched his nose closed with one hand and lifted the first bag of garbage with the other. He lugged it to the dumpster and put it down before turning back to get the rest._

 _It took sixteen trips, but the young prince hauled it all out of the castle! Then he swung the lid on the dumpster open and lifted the first bag over his head to toss it in. It made a resounding_ thud _and a small kitten jumped away from the bags with the kitchen scraps in them. Surprised, the young prince bent down and reached a hand out to the kitten. The kitten was scared but it got close enough to sniff the young prince’s fingers, but then it raced away and hid under the dumpster when the young prince tried to pick him up._

_The young prince put the rest of the garbage bags carefully into the dumpster so he wouldn’t scare the kitten again and then he raced back into the castle’s kitchen. He found a roasted chicken and took a chunk of it outside to feed the kitten._

_The kitten came out to eat the chicken but still wouldn’t let the young prince pick him up, so the young prince decided to come back the next night to feed the kitten again._

_For a whole week the young prince took the garbage out every night and fed the lurking kitten when he was done. The queen was very pleased and told the prince that he could keep the kitten if he could catch it, so the young prince patiently fed the kitten every day until the kitten trusted him enough to let him pick it up._

_It was all black and its fur was matted and scruffy and standing up at weird angles, but he imagined it was soft and fluffy under all the dirt and grime. “I will call you Kuro,” he said, happy to have finally caught the kitten, “and we will be great friends.”_

_He nuzzled the kitten affectionately, but wrinkled up his nose when he found out the hard way that the kitten was as stinky as the garbage. He took the kitten into the bath with him to clean it up, and when they were both scrubbed clean and a little sleepy from the warm water, the young prince dried them both off and curled up with the kitten in bed. The kitten nuzzled the young prince affectionately, and curled up on his chest to sleep. The young prince fell asleep with a smile on his face, thinking about how much he already loved the little kitten._

 

_***_

 

Tooru turns in his carefully penned story with confidence. It’s probably not what the teacher is expecting, but Tooru likes defying expectations by performing well in surprising ways.

That night, his mom asks him to take the garbage out, and Tooru groans. He _hates_ taking the garbage out.

He procrastinates until right before bed and he’s tempted to pretend to forget and crawl into bed before his mom can remind him again, but then he remembers how tired she looked when she got home from work, and how she agreed to frozen pizza for dinner without any argument, and Tooru groans again. He prides himself on being the best at everything, including being the best son, and that means not being spoiled like the prince in his story.

Even if he _would_ like to be a prince and live in a castle.

So he dumps all the trash cans in the house into the kitchen trash bag, and ties it closed with a twisty. He wrestles with the heavy bag to pull it out of the trash can, and then holds it up as high as he can to carry it outside without letting it drag on the floor.

He pauses to put on his boots and a coat—February’s just as chilly as January was, but with more snow—then hauls the bag out to the wheeled garbage can, and pulls that down the driveway and out to the curb. His task complete, he turns to go back inside, and something dark catches his attention, cowering against the garage wall where the garbage can used to sit. He looks closer, and swallows his surprise.

It’s a dark grey kitten, curled into the tiniest ball and visibly shivering in the cold.

Tooru only hesitates for a moment before approaching slowly. He offers his hand palm up and it shies away, but it doesn’t run. Tooru figures it’s too cold to make that kind of effort.

It mewls softly when Tooru scoops it up and hugs it close, but it doesn’t fight. Tooru tucks it up against his neck where it’s warm, his nose wrinkling over the fact that it could be cleaner, and takes it inside.

Once back in the house, he strips off his outerwear one handed, juggling the kitten back and forth as he shucks layers. Then, not entirely sure what to do with the kitten, Tooru takes it upstairs and deposits it in the bathroom sink.

“Mom,” he calls, hearing her rustling around in her bedroom.

“Everything okay, sweetie?” comes her answer, and Tooru replies cautiously, aware of his promise to ask for help when he needs it, but unsure just how his mother will react to a stray in the sink.

“Yeah, just...can you come in the bathroom for a second?”

She appears a moment later, a look of concern smoothing into one of surprise when she spots the feline intruder. “Would you like to tell me what happened here?” she asks carefully.

Tooru sighs, facing his mother. “I found it when I took the trash to the curb. It was hiding behind the garbage can to stay out of the wind.”

His mother’s face adopts her signature ‘I’m not so sure about this’ look, and Tooru rushes to defend his decision.

“I couldn’t leave it there!” he exclaims. “If I didn’t bring it inside, it probably would have frozen to death!” He activates his Secret Weapon, widening his eyes and dropping the corners of his mouth just the teeniest bit.

It works. At least, partially. His mother sighs and says, “Okay, it can stay the night. But just one night! Tomorrow we take it to the humane society and let them find it a home.”

Tooru grimaces internally, acknowledging stubbornly that he has more persuading to do before morning, and turns to look at the kitten with his mother.

“So...should we give it a bath?” he asks hesitantly, and his mother replies immediately.

“Oh, heavens, yes.”

 

***

 

Bathing a kitten is exactly as tricky as it sounds like it should be, but Tooru doesn’t mind the little scratches he gets along the way. He’s too busy noticing that the kitten is, in fact, _not_ a dark gray, but fully black, once the mud and ice in its coat is melted and washed away.

“Kuro,” he whispers to himself, a bit stunned by the coincidences lining up before him, and when his mother absently replies with a “Hmm?” it takes him a moment to collect himself before he can spit out that they have to have something to call it until they drop it off at the humane society, so what about Kuro?

“I suppose. It suits him,” is her reply, and Tooru is distracted suddenly by the fact that it’s a boy cat. He hadn’t even thought to ask.

After the kitten is clean and dried, and most importantly, warmed enough by the water that his shivering has stopped, Tooru suggests they find something for him to eat. “He’s so skinny, Mom!” he proclaims, and gathers up the kitten without further delay, heading straight for the kitchen.

“Tooru!” his mom calls after him, but he’s on a mission to keep a kitten, and the better they care for Kuro tonight, the more bonding time his mother is subjected to.

They find a can of chunked chicken breast in the pantry, and his mother opens it murmuring a surprised, “Where did this can even come from?” Tooru feeds the kitten little pieces one at a time to keep him from inhaling the food too quickly and making himself sick.

His mother disappears out the back door after a moment, and returns a few minutes later with a wide, narrow oil pan and a bucket of sand from the garage. Tooru looks up at her, wide-eyed with surprise that she was taking initiative already in caring for Kuro, but she just gives him a shrug and says, “It’ll do for a litter box for one night.”

When Kuro’s appetite dwindles and he’s had a good long drink of water (and been shown where his sandbox is), Tooru picks Kuro up again and nuzzles him affectionately. He smells like Tooru’s Spiderman shampoo, and even though he’s clean now, he still looks a bit scruffy, the fur on his head sticking every which direction. Tooru thinks it looks kind of silly, and makes a mental note to try brushing it down later.

For now, it’s bedtime. Tooru’s yawning, and Kuro’s yawning, and Tooru’s mom is ushering them upstairs. She makes a nest out of an extra blanket on the floor next to Tooru’s bed for Kuro, but Kuro promptly ignores it and jumps up onto Tooru’s bed with him. Tooru grins and snuggles down into his mattress, looking up at his mom with a genuinely happy smile on his face.

And as Kuro crawls onto Tooru’s chest and curls up in a tiny little ball, Tooru sees his own smile reflected on his mother’s face. It looks good there, he thinks. That smile _belongs_ there.

Tooru scratches softly behind one of the kitten’s ears as his mom turns off the light and pulls the door mostly, but not fully, closed. The two of them drift off that way, their breathing synchronizing and body heat turning into shared warmth.

Kuro will be good for both of them, Tooru’s sure.

 

***

 

In the morning, Tooru brushes his teeth with Kuro settled on top of his shoulder. He giggles around bubblegum foam as the kitten balances effortlessly on his narrow perch, sitting primly as though he’s above it all. Which he almost is, since Tooru is wildly tall for his age.

When he leans over to spit and rinse his mouth, Kuro slides efficiently down Tooru’s back, claws kindly retracted, before leaping lightly from Tooru’s lower back to the top of the toilet tank.

Tooru dries his mouth on his towel, and bends to kiss the top of Kuro’s scruffy head (a comb did _nothing_ for it this morning, but Tooru thinks that’s okay, because Kuro’s bedhead look is kind of cute in a roguish sort of way) before heading downstairs to put on his coat. It’s one of those rare days when his mom doesn’t have to go in to the hospital until late in the morning, so she’s waiting by the front door to walk with him to school.

Tooru half wishes that Kuro could come with, too. Not to _stay_ at school, but just for the walk. Maybe when it’s warmer they can get him a harness and a leash.

His mother bends to kiss him on the cheek when they reach the school, and he wraps her in a tight hug. He doesn’t care if the other students see. He loves his mom, and his mom loves him, and that’s infinitely more important to Tooru than his almost-friendships with the other kids.

During the day, Tooru thinks on and off about Kuro, and how to convince his mother to keep him. She’s promised to wait to take him to the humane society until Tooru can go with, which means that Kuro’s been granted a 24-hour reprieve, since her shift won’t end today until after the humane society closes.

Before school, she made Tooru promise to eat a proper dinner—the last of the spaghetti leftovers literally have his name written on them—and to feed Kuro, and clean his sandbox. Tooru’s never cleaned a litter box (or a litter box substitute) before, but his mom has written down instructions and he’s determined to prove that he can take good care of a pet. It’s part of his twelve-point plan to keep Kuro.

After careful consideration, the plan, in its entirety, reads:

  1. Prove to Mom that I am responsible enough to take care of Kuro.
  2. Show Mom how happy we are together.
  3. Play with Mom and Kuro together so she can see how much fun he is.
  4. Use the Secret Weapon when Mom talks about the humane society.



Okay, so it’s more like a _four_ -point plan, but they’re all really _good_ points, so Tooru’s not worried. Mostly.

He really doesn’t want to give Kuro up.

 

***

 

Tooru is laying on the couch, his hair fanned out on the pillow under his head. It’s getting kind of long, and he’ll need a haircut soon, but for tonight, he doesn’t mind.

Kuro’s curled up on it, pinning Tooru in place, his tiny body’s heat radiant against the top of Tooru’s head. The warmth affects him in multiple ways, making him feel a bit sleepy, but nurturing a contented smile on his face, one stemming from a growing happiness in his heart.

Resting on Tooru’s chest, held tightly in one fist, is the pen that he used to write his story about finding Kuro.

He’s not sure exactly what happened, or exactly _how_ it happened, but he’s pretty sure that the pen in his hand is magical. The circumstances of finding Kuro are too similar to his story to be mere coincidence, and Tooru is set on proving it. He just needs to figure out how.

This logically leads him to his next thought: scientific experiment. Tooru is well aware that, when scientists want to prove something, they experiment in a controlled fashion. So he figures he should do the same.

He needs to test the pen, to see if he can duplicate his results, but the question is...how? If he really can affect reality, then he needs to be careful. He needs to test the pen’s limits in a way that won’t hurt anyone.

He thinks about it all evening, laying there contemplating his options, until he falls asleep. When his mom gets home from work much later, she pours a so-deeply-asleep-he’s-practically-boneless kitten into Tooru’s arms and guides him up to bed.

She tucks the covers gently around the two of them and Tooru is relieved, through heavy eyelids and sleep-addled thoughts, to note that she’s smiling down at the two of them with fondness in her eyes.

 

***

 

At school the next day, Tooru outlines his experiment, and that afternoon when he gets home, he puts his plan into action.

First, he searches under the couch cushions, and while he discovers that the crevices beneath the cushions could stand to be vacuumed, there’s nothing there but blanket lint and the occasional popcorn kernel. Next, he sits at his desk and writes a quick story about finding $20 in the couch cushions—a harmless enough idea. Then, steeling himself, Tooru races to the couch to see if it worked.

To his amazement, it does. A quick search yields more blanket lint and a crisply folded $20 bill. Tooru gapes at it, 45% giddy with joy—his experiment _worked—_ and 55% stunned beyond his processing capabilities by the power the pen holds. (Tooru swears never to roll his eyes at the expression _the pen is mightier than the sword_ again.)

Practically vibrating in place with excitement for his victory, Tooru picks Kuro up and dances around the living room. The kitten is startled at first, but quickly settles into Tooru’s enthusiasm with all the grace a cat can muster. Tooru grins at him.

His elation sifts through his mental filter slowly, but when the knowledge of his experiment’s success reaches the _thinking_ part of his brain, Tooru realizes that his results mean nothing if he’s not able to duplicate them.

So, he plans phase two of his experiment, and proceeds with it. Checking the fridge first and coming up empty, Tooru writes a story about a boy who’s hungry finding a piece of cake in the fridge and eating it for snack, then he goes downstairs, thrumming with excitement and hope, and opens the fridge once more.

There’s no cake in the fridge. He checks twice, just to be sure. Confused, Tooru closes the refrigerator door and frowns at the art and report cards tacked there by magnets. He huffs a sigh, contemplating what this outcome means for his experiment, and turns to the cupboard to get a glass of water.

Something bright catches his gaze at the back of the countertop, next to the toaster, and his eyes lock on it. It’s not in the fridge like he wrote, but he can’t remember it being there before. The piece of cake is huge, cut in a wide rectangle and wrapped in plastic on a large paper plate. The frosting is his favorite color, a brilliant blue, and Tooru imagines that it would match the color of a tropical ocean if he compared them side-by-side. He carefully pulls it toward himself, then sits down at the table with the plate and a fork. It’s a little late for it, but in his excitement, Tooru had forgotten to eat a snack, and his tummy is grumbling noisily.

The first bite is delicious. Funfetti cake melts on his tongue and blue icing stains his lips and teeth as he eats bite after bite. He can’t stop, it’s so good, and Tooru _knows_ he’s going to regret it when he can’t finish his dinner later, but he _really can’t stop, and_ —

Tooru quickly drops the fork after shoveling in a large mouthful of cake, and scrambles back from the table as he’s chewing. _What if he couldn’t stop because he wrote in his story that he ate the whole piece?_

Horrified, Tooru, stares from across the room at the cake left on the plate—a quarter of the huge piece is all that remains, which is still a full serving in its own right—but he’s afraid to get closer to it, afraid that stepping back toward the cake will mean stepping back into the clutches of the story he wrote.

He’s brave, he reminds himself. Taking a deep breath, Tooru inches forward one step at a time, until he can rewrap the cake in the plastic film and shove it toward the back of the counter. He’s trembling a little, and he’s not entirely sure if it’s his presumed loss of willpower or the sugar rush finally hitting him, but he’s unhappy with either eventuality and he collapses onto the couch in a jittery heap.

His mother comes home from work only twenty minutes later and finds him clutching his stomach, discomfort written on his features. Sighing, she tells him to head upstairs to bed—she’ll make some chicken noodle soup for dinner and bring it up to him in a little while—adding that they’ll have to postpone their trip to the humane society until the weekend now.

Tooru’s sure that she noticed his blue lips and is unhappy with his decision to eat the cake right before dinner, but she doesn’t push it right then and he vows to make it up to her, especially in light of the fact that Kuro’s been given another couple of days before he has to go.

 

***

 

When she brings a bowl of soup to him on a tray, Kuro trotting along behind her, she sits down on the edge of the bed to make sure he eats properly.

She expresses her disappointment in his decision to eat cake right before dinner, telling him that she’d brought it home late last night, a treat from a co-worker that had had a birthday and knew that funfetti cake was Tooru’s favorite.

He apologizes. He’s not really sure what got into him—no, _really_ , how does that pen work, that it could do that to him?—but he won’t do it again. His tummy ache is a lesson in and of itself.

She nods, and accepts his apology. This is one of the perks of being a responsible child, Tooru thinks. His mother doesn’t talk to him like he’s a dumb kid. Instead, she treats him with respect and talks to him like he’s an adult. Of course, that means that he’s expected to _behave_ like an adult more often than not, but he doesn’t mind. He’s always been mature for his age. And when he slips up...well. He’s still a kid, and his mom seems to remember that when it counts.

The cake issue settled, Tooru’s mom tells him about her day while he eats. He sips at his soup gingerly, until she mentions offhandedly that she had to borrow money from a coworker to renew her monthly bus pass so she could come home.

He inhales broth too quickly and coughs a bit when she says that she thought she’d had a $20 in her pocket, but that it must have fallen out somewhere.

Tooru’s mind races—is that the $20 he found in the couch? Maybe the pen doesn’t actually do magic in the sense of creating things from scratch, but instead alters what already exists to better match what’s written. He remembers that the cake was on the counter, not in the fridge, and amends his hypothesis. Maybe the pen just bends reality a little closer to what’s written—he’s not a prince, after all, and he doesn’t live in a castle like in Kuro’s story, so unrealistic things don’t come true—so maybe the pen just shifts reality a little bit.

It bears thinking about, but in the meantime, Tooru hands the $20 he found in the couch to his mom. “I think it probably fell out of your pocket when you sat on the couch,” he says. “I was cleaning a little and found it.”

A look of surprise overwhelms her features as she slowly reaches out to take the money from her son. The look in her eyes, however, is pure pride.

He might have eaten cake when he wasn’t supposed to, but Tooru’s not completely selfish. He’s going to be the best son he possibly can be, and the small smile on his mother’s face as he finishes his soup is the perfect motivation to work harder at it.

 

***

 

Tooru hides the pen away in the back of his desk drawer, and leaves it there.

He’s thought about it a lot—about how his mom had been in a tight spot because her cash ended up in the couch, and about how he could barely stop eating cake and it got him in trouble and gave him an upset stomach.

And those are just small “harmless” stories. What would happen if he uses the pen for something more important? Tooru is afraid of changing reality for the worse, and so he puts the pen in a place where his mom won’t find it and use it by accident, and then tries not to think about it.

It’s hard, though. When he’s sitting quietly at lunch and the other kids are yelling and laughing with each other, he sorely wishes he could change things. When he’s sitting home alone, making a cold peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner, he’s tempted to fetch the pen and _do_ something about it.

 

The one thing that manages to distract Tooru from the burning itch to _fix_ things is Kuro. After several nights of warm, soft kitten curling up next to Tooru to sleep in adorable displays of instant affection, their cuteness factor has increased to a level Tooru’s mother can no longer deny. She gives in, and Kuro becomes an official member of the family.

Tooru’s mom buys him a collar and tags to prove it, along with proper kitten food and an actual litter box and litter. Which Kuro promptly uses, and Tooru promptly cleans. He has to show his mom he’s grateful, after all, and Tooru pledges to spoil Kuro rotten with love at every opportunity.

Laying in bed before sleep comes, however, Tooru’s mind always drifts back to the pen, no matter how close Kuro is snuggled in, and he reminds himself that it’s way too dangerous to even think about using.

 

***

  
Months pass, and the school year ends, and Tooru spends the first two weeks of his summer break alone, sleeping in with Kuro lazily curled up in the crook of his knees and books left over from late-night reading strewn haphazardly around his bed.

It’s nice, but it’s lonely. Tooru misses the companionship of his classmates (they weren’t great friends, but at least he had someone to talk to), and his mother’s work schedule has been packed full of double shifts and overtime—something about being understaffed—so they’ve been communicating mostly through notes left on the refrigerator. Tooru understands, but understanding doesn’t make it any better, especially when his fresh start has flopped so spectacularly.

The silver lining is the pay raise his mom gets when her boss sees how much extra time she’s putting in to keep their department functioning. Tooru focuses on that, and remembers to be glad for the little things.

Their neighborhood is, for the most part, quiet. Now that the cold weather’s been traded in for sunshine and hot breezes, the other homes on their street have come alive with activity, but none of it is the raucous flurry of noise and excitement that would accompany anyone else Tooru’s age.

He wonders who used to live here, to make someone feel the need to build the treehouse in the backyard, but it’s only an idle curiosity. Speculating about it does nothing to change the fact that he’s the only one around to enjoy it.

The fourth of July arrives, and Tooru goes to watch the fireworks with the kindly couple across the street. His mom gets home from work several hours later, when he’s already tucked himself into bed and fallen asleep, but he finds a note from her in the morning. It reads,

_Tooru,_

_I hope you enjoyed the fireworks last night! We took a couple of our patients up to the roof to watch them, and everyone thought it was a great show._

_I’ll be home late again tonight, one of the CNAs called in sick so we have to find coverage for his shifts somewhere, but I made tuna salad for sandwiches and cut up a watermelon, so there’s plenty of good food in the fridge. Don’t eat too many chips, and don’t let Kuro have too much of the tuna!_

_I have the day off on Friday, and it’s been a while since we did anything together…how about we go to the planetarium?_

_Love you!  
_ _Mom_

He smiles blearily through his morning haze, grabs the watermelon out of the fridge, and puts a piece of bread in the toaster for breakfast.

 

***

 

When Friday rolls around, Tooru’s up early, dressed and ready to go. His mom smiles when she sees him so excited, and he grins in return. They pass the whole day this way, sharing happiness back and forth as they move through the exhibits. Tooru already knows a lot of the stuff the exhibits teach, but he doesn’t mind, especially when they end their day with a show that’s a guided tour of the universe.

Tooru knows that most of the pictures during the show are only CG renderings, but he doesn’t mind. His imagination will run rampant with aliens living in these strange landscapes over the next couple of days, and daydreaming what it would be like to meet them there in their strange worlds will be a pleasant distraction from his quiet reality.

 

***

 

Three days after the planetarium, the post-trip excitement has worn thin, and Tooru has returned to his daily routine—get up, eat breakfast, read outside, eat lunch, read inside, eat dinner, clean up a little, play with Kuro, and read a little more before bed.

He mixes it up every four days, or so, with a trip to the library to exchange the backpack full of books that he’s devoured since his last visit. A new Rocky’s Adventures book comes out, and he practically inhales it once he gets his hands on it.

It’s both a blessing and a curse. They’re his favorite books, so _of course_ he’s glad there’s a new one, but it reminds him once again that he’s alone, and suddenly he can’t stand it anymore.

He goes to bed that night with a sinking in his stomach, and the next morning, he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. He lays there idly in his pajamas under a thick comforter, despite the summer heat, until 2 o’clock in the afternoon, when Kuro insists noisily that Tooru feed him, and by the time his mom gets home from work late that evening, Tooru is back in bed again.

What’s the point of getting up, of _staying_ up, when he’s alone no matter what he does?

That night, when his mom comes upstairs to check on him, he pretends to be asleep. He’s so tired, and so tired of feeling this way, that it’s hardly any work to lay there and steady his breathing. She smooths his hair back from his forehead, checking his temperature in passing, before kissing him gently and pulling his door mostly closed behind her. Tooru opens his eyes when he hears the stairs creak with her descent, and stares passively at the wall in front of him.

 

***

 

After three days of this behavior, Kuro’s had enough.

He stands on Tooru’s side, the boy having curled in on himself with his knees tucked up near his chin, and _yowls_. When this doesn’t immediately rouse Tooru, Kuro begins batting at the boy’s hair, or at least the bit of it that sticks out the top of the blankets. After a few well-placed smacks, Tooru yanks the blanket down and glares at Kuro.

Kuro meows again, softer this time, a little plaintively, and reaches out to touch Tooru’s cheekbone. Then he climbs down onto the mattress, sits in front of Tooru’s face, and headbutts the boy’s lips.

He does it again and again and again, demanding Tooru shower him with kisses and affection, until Tooru is giggling softly at his antics.

Tooru gets up, showers for the first time in days (which makes Kuro yowl more, because _who in their right mind would stand under running water like that?_ ), combs his hair, and puts on fresh clothes. Then he begins to apply himself, for the first time in what feels like forever, to figuring out how to be happy.

 

***

 

A week before his birthday, Tooru makes a decision. It’s probably not a good one, but he’s decided that the universe can deal with putting him first, for a change.

He grabs a notebook and a pencil, and starts making notes. All the things that he loves about Rocky and River’s friendship, which blossomed and grew in the books since the camping story, and all the adventures that Rocky’s had that Tooru wants to try, too, and—

 _No_. If he’s going to do this, it needs to be simple. He needs to keep from making ripples in the pond and disrupting reality any farther than he’s already going to.

He thinks for days before he pulls out a fresh piece of paper, and, hands shaking, writes the most basic of short stories. When it’s finished, he breaths carefully, steadying himself, and copies it with the pen he’s had hidden away for months.

 _There once was a boy that was lonely. He lived in half of a castle and the other half was empty until one day a family moved into it. They had a son the same age as the lonely boy and the two became_ _best_ _friends._

 

***

 

On his birthday, Tooru is woken up by a loud, rhythmic beeping. He wonders for a moment if it’s his mom’s alarm clock, and then remembers that she took an early shift today so she could be home for the afternoon and evening to celebrate with him. Irritated by the continuing noise, Tooru gets up and pads to the window, to see what the ruckus is.

It’s a moving truck.

His breath catches in his chest— _this is it, it’s_ time, _finally_ —and he scrambles to throw on his glasses and some clothes and to comb his hair before running down the stairs. Kuro is sitting placidly by his shoes at the front door, and Tooru almost steps past him, but thinks better of it at the last minute. Kuro’s his friend, and Tooru feels like he needs a little moral support, so he picks the growing kitten up and hugs him to his chest as he steps out onto the front stoop.

There’s a short boy—okay, not _short_ , but shorter than Tooru—walking up the sidewalk with an ant farm in his arms. He’s got wild dark hair that sticks out in all directions, and a firmly unhappy expression lodged upon his face.

Tooru hugs Kuro a little tighter, making the poor cat squirm, and says, a little timidly, “Hi.”

The other boy looks at Tooru appraisingly, and says, “Hey.”

“I’m Tooru. And this is Kuro,” Tooru supplies, hoisting the cat slightly in introduction. _Somebody_ has to make an effort, here.

“I’m Hajime,” the boy replies.

“Do you wanna come see the treehouse?” Tooru asks hopefully.

“There’s a treehouse?” Hajime says, the first signs of interest surfacing across his features.

“Yep!” Tooru grins, easing his grip on Kuro slightly in his relief. The cat scrambles to get down, and Tooru quickly deposits him back in the house, so he can’t run off.

“Uh, lemme put this down and ask if I can go look at it,” Hajime says. “I’m supposed to be helping unload the truck.”

“Oh! Right. I could help. If you want me to.” Tooru pushes his glasses up his nose nervously as he waits for Hajime’s answer.

“Okay. Can you get the door?”

Tooru grins. “You bet!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. IWA HAS FINALLY ARRIVED. I promise there will be SO. MUCH. of him in the coming chapters to make up for his delayed appearance.
> 
> Also, you can't convince me that Kuroo wouldn't make the best feline wingman ever. You can't.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, kudos & comments are treasured. Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callie_ks) if you ever want to scream about volleydorks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tooru’s chattering a mile a minute at Hajime, he knows, but in his excitement, he can’t contain it. They’re going to be close friends, anyway—maybe even _best_ friends—so what does it matter if he acts more like himself than he would normally would around others?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much fun to write. Happy Tooru gives me life.
> 
> <3

When Tooru’s mom gets home, she finds her son layered in sweat and a dust, the broadest grin lodged on his face as he helps their new neighbors carry their possessions inside.

He’s chattering a mile a minute at Hajime, he knows, but in his excitement, he can’t contain it. They’re going to be close friends, anyway—maybe even  _best_  friends—so what does it matter if he acts more like himself than he would normally would around others?

Hajime’s side of the house is an exact mirror image of Tooru’s, and as they run box after box up the stairs into the front bedroom, Tooru shifts gears and starts to ask questions.

“What’s in all these boxes?” he asks, as something clinks inside as he sets one down. “They’re  _heavy_.”

“Careful!” Hajime says, reaching for the box protectively and sliding it across the floor toward himself. “It’s my bug collection.”

“You  _collect_  bugs?” Tooru gasps, vaguely appalled. “Are they still...alive?”

“Some of them,” Hajime says, opening the box and pulling a jar out and thrusting it in Tooru’s face. “Here,” he grunts, and Tooru’s hands come up to gently cup the glass jar.

Surprise written on his face, Tooru turns his gaze upon the contents on the jar, and his jaw falls open when he realizes there’s a  _cocoon_ attached to the twigs and leaves arranged inside.

“Whooa!” Tooru whispers in awe, and a small smile softens Hajime’s face. “Is it gonna be a butterfly?”

Hajime nods, turning back to the contents of the box. “A monarch, I think.”

Tooru nods sagely. “Did you know they can eat an entire milkweed leaf in less than five minutes?”

Startled, Hajime looks up at Tooru from the other jars that he’s unpacking. “Do you like bugs too?” he asks.

“A little,” Tooru replies. “Mostly I like space. And aliens. But I like knowing things, and my mom got me a book of bug facts for Christmas, so I read it a couple times.”

“A couple times,” Hajime says flatly, and Tooru flushes.

“Hey, I  _like_  reading, okay?”

“Sure, okay,” Hajime says.

“Boys!” Hajime’s mother calls up from the bottom of the stairs, and Tooru jumps. “We’re taking a break! Come down for a snack!”

Tooru gently sets the jar with the cocooned butterfly on the floor next to the box, and the two of them race down the hallway. Hajime’s mom is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and she ushers them back outside, and then holds Tooru’s front door open for them.

Tooru slips off his shoes and heads straight for the kitchen, Hajime and his parents right behind him, before coming to a complete stop in front of the kitchen table. “Mom?”

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she says, smiling, lighting the last of nine candles stuck delicately into the spongy top of an angel food cake.

“It’s your birthday?” Hajime asks, surprised.

“Yeah,” Tooru says.

“And you’re helping us move in?” Hajime asks skeptically.

Tooru shakes his head, meeting Hajime’s gaze with one of his own, something akin to victory sparkling in his eyes. “Nah. I’m making a friend.”

In the periphery, Tooru’s mother says, “Make a wish and blow out the candles, honey.”

Tooru breaks into a full grin, knowing that this year the candles and wish-making are wholly unnecessary, because his wish has already come true.

As Tooru turns to blow out the candles and appease his mother, the pink spreading across Hajime’s cheeks deepens.

 

***

 

“Tooru, let’s  _go_ ,” Hajime calls up from the front door, and Tooru runs his comb through his hair twice more before throwing it down on the counter and thundering his way down the stairs.

Kuro opens an eye to stare at them from his place on the back of the couch before the boys disappear down the hallway toward the front door.

“Patience, Haji,” Tooru says as he hastily pulls his shoes on and grabs for his backpack. It’s a  _new_  one this year, still alien themed, but bigger and with more pockets, and with a notably functioning zipper. It’s still his favorite of his birthday presents this year, and that’s saying something since he got a brand-new copy of ET on Blu-ray, too.

They lock Tooru’s front door behind them, and start off down the sidewalk toward their school.

“We’re gonna be  _late_ ,” Hajime says.

“Nope,” Tooru chirps. “I know a shortcut!”

“A shortcut?” Hajime asks, regret already recognizable in his voice. “Is this gonna be like that time this summer when you were sure that trail through the park would lead straight to the library?”

“Ugh,  _no_ ,” Tooru rolls his eyes. “This one is  _better_. It actually  _works_ , Haji. I used it  _all the time_  last year.”

“And you never got lost?” Hajime questions, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Not after the first time!”

Hajime just raises an eyebrow and waits.

“Fine, so I got lost a  _couple_  of times. But once I had the path figured out I didn’t get lost anymore!” Tooru says defensively, his face crumpling into a pout under the weight of Hajime’s stare.

Hajime sighs. After a solid month spent practically joined at the hip with Tooru, he’s learned to pick his battles. “Alright, alright,” he says, “let’s go.”

True to form, Tooru perks up, and reaches for his hand. “Great! It’s this way, Haji!” he says, pulling his friend along.

They’re not late at all. In fact, they’re a bit earlier than Hajime had intended them to arrive in the first place, and he applauds Tooru’s shortcut. Secretly.

No sense in adding fuel to that fire.

 

***

 

The screech of happiness that had escaped Tooru when he and Hajime learned they would be in the same class has  _nothing_  on the well of excitement that threatens to bubble up and overwhelm him now, Tooru thinks. Because there are two desks still empty— _next to each other—_ in the back of the classroom. And he and Hajime are going to claim them.

And this is going to be the  _best year ever_.

 

***

 

It’s late October, and Tooru’s glad for his coat when a cold breeze ruffles his wavy locks and starts a chill running down his spine. He and Hajime are tossing a ball back and forth—a volleyball, since the footballs and kickballs were already claimed by the time they made it to the playground after lunch.

A second shiver chases the first through his body, and Tooru pulls his hands deeper into the ends of his sleeves, leaving only his fingertips peeking out. The ball comes his way and, too lazy to fix his sleeves so he can catch the ball and throw it back properly, he steps underneath its arc and pushes it back up into the air with the strength in his fingers.

It doesn’t fly very far, but Hajime steps up to meet it, and slaps the ball down with his palm instead of returning it to Tooru. The ball slams into the blacktop with a thwack that resonates through Tooru, and he turns to look up at Hajime, shock and excitement warring for space on his features.

“That was  _awesome_!” Tooru squeals. “Can you do it again?!”

“I dunno,” Hajime says, a little stunned by the power in his swing, and Tooru’s pout surfaces instantly.

“Hajime~” Tooru drawls, “you could at least  _try_.”

“Fine, but can you aim the ball in the same way?”

Tooru’s eyes light up, and he grins. “I can  _try_.”

After another four attempts, they connect again, and both of the boys grin, “Again!”

 

***

 

As recess is ending, the playground monitor collecting the balls asks Tooru, “Do you guys play volleyball?”

“Huh?” Hajime asks. “No. Why?”

“Oh. You just looked like you knew what you were doing! You should join a volleyball team and hone your skills!”

Startled, Tooru glances at Hajime, and then back at the playground monitor. “We could do that?”

“Sure! Why not? If you play on a community team for fun now, you’ll have the basics down when you get to middle school and you can join the team there.”

“Haji, can we?!” Tooru begs, turning his Secret Weapon face on Hajime.

Hajime groans. He’s only known Tooru for two and a half months, but one of the first things he’s learned about his new friends is that there’s no holding out against him when he employs his Secret Weapon.

“Fiiiine,” Hajime gives in. “We can ask our moms.”

“Yesss!” Tooru yells, pumping his fist as he jumps straight up in the air, his feet tucked up, his knees easily clearing the height of Hajime’s waist.

 _Maybe volleyball would be good for Tooru’s energy levels_ , Hajime thinks.

 

***

 

Later that night, when Tooru’s mom gets home, he’s finished his homework, folded the laundry, and—much to Kuro’s displeasure—vacuumed the whole apartment. It took him a while to haul the vacuum up the stairs, but he’s nothing if not persistent.

Tooru can tell that she’s tired. There are weary creases across her brow, and her smile barely reaches her eyes when Tooru greets her. He folds his arms around her middle in a tight embrace, and rattles off the list of things that he got done.

A note of gratefulness creeps into her smile, a hint of pride close on its heels, and she hugs him back in earnest.

“Thanks, baby,” she whispers into his hair.

“Of course, Mom!” he beams innocently, and she pushes him away from her just enough to see his face.

“Okay, so what do you want?” she jokes, bending sideways to slip her shoes off.

“Um, well—”

“Wait, really?” she startles. A laugh bubbles up out of her, and she says, “Well, this is new. Alright, come sit down on the couch with me and we’ll talk about it.”

She strips off her jacket, hanging it quickly, and leads him into the living room. She sinks into the corner of the couch with a groan, propping her feet up on the edge of the coffee table. Tooru climbs onto the middle cushion, tucking his legs beneath him, and, with a nod of encouragement from his mother, he says, “The playground monitor at school said Haji and me—”

“Haji and I,” she corrects gently.

“Haiji and I,” Tooru echos, licking his lips. He pushes up his glasses, and presses forward. “He said Haji and I should try playing volleyball. ‘Cause we were playing with a volleyball at recess one day, and he said we were naturals! And that we should play on a team now so we learn the basics before middle school when we can join a  _real_ team, and—”

“Okay, hold on. Back up. Where would you play? Does the school have a team?”

Tooru frowns. “No, but there’s community teams, he said. I can find out where!” The words rush out of him with a bit a desperation laced through them. He  _really_  wants to do this—to play with Hajime on a team, to be on equal footing with his new friend on this new adventure, and to work harder at getting better  _together_.

“Well, let’s look it up together, huh?” she says, and she stands up to head upstairs. Tooru’s eyes widen, and he scrambles to follow her to her computer. She’s gonna say  _yes_ , Tooru’s sure, and he’s  _giddy_  over it.

A giggle tumbles out of him as he dashes up the stairs, adjusting his glasses to sit evenly on his nose after his hustle knocks them askew.

His excitement turns to ash when they learn that the recreational youth teams all meet at the youth center eight miles away. It’s too far to walk, and a bus pass to get him there and back as often as he’d need to go is too expensive.

Not even his Secret Weapon works this time, and Tooru is not ashamed when he cries into his pillow that night, Kuro sprawled across his back to offer comfort.

 

***

 

Tooru can’t stand to meet Hajime’s eyes when he tells him that he can’t play volleyball with him.

“Why?” Hajime asks bluntly.

“I don’t have a way to get there,” Tooru mourns quietly, too embarrassed to look up from where he’s scuffing his shoe on the floor.

“Oh,” Hajime says, and Tooru thinks his voice sounds lighter than it should be. Shouldn’t Hajime be more disappointed with Tooru? “My mom can drive us,” Hajime adds, and Tooru’s head jerks up fast enough to make the muscles in his neck twinge.

“...What?” Tooru asks, breathless.

“My mom. She can drive us,” Hajime repeats. “Is that the only reason you can’t do it?”

Tooru can’t help it. A delirious sound burbles up out of his chest, and then he’s laughing and crying and falling over and his chest is so tight with happiness that he can hardly gasp in enough air to fuel the exhilaration wriggling under his skin.

Hajime eyes Tooru critically before sighing and sitting down next to his friend. “Did you forget that we’re doing it together?” he asks, when Tooru finally quiets. “You can ask me for help, Tooru.”

And Tooru knows that he can. He knows that he has people who care about him, that he’s not alone, and that he can depend upon Hajime. It’s just so new still, and the idea of it still makes his breath catch in his throat, and it’s going to take some getting used to.

“Yeah,” Tooru sighs heavily, releasing the last of the tension in his muscles and choosing to rely on his friend. “Yeah, I kinda did.”

 

***

 

When Tooru’s mom gets home that night, she’s greeted by Hajime and his mother playing monopoly with Tooru on the coffee table in the living room. She smiles, glad to see her son laughing and smiling so much, and when she agrees to let Tooru play volleyball at the youth center— _“I really don’t mind driving him. I’ll be taking Hajime anyway, so another kid in the car is no extra trouble,”_  Mrs. Iwaizumi assures them—Tooru’s smile only gets wider.

The best part is seeing his own smile reflected on Hajime’s face.

 

***

 

For Christmas, Tooru gets volleyball shoes, knee pads, and a volleyball. He shrieks with delight, hugs his mother so hard he’s sure his arms will fall off with the effort, and then races next door to show Hajime.

Tooru’s mother follows him, smiling at his eagerness, and exchanges a conspiratorial grin with Hajime’s parents, because Hajime’s received volleyball shoes, knee pads, and a net for the backyard.

Between the two of them, they have everything they need to practice at home—once the snow melts, their parents caution—and new gear to play at the gym with their team. The boys grin at each other so fiercely that Tooru thinks their faces might freeze that way.

The idea of it appeals to him, honestly. Who  _wouldn’t_  want to be this happy forever?

 

***

 

Winter break is infinitely more fun with a friend. Tooru finds himself enjoying playing outside more than he could have imagined, and the thrill of running around has him a bit out of breath.

Or maybe it’s just the running around. He collapses on his back in the backyard, panting. Hitting Hajime with a snowball is hard work. He keeps  _dodging_ , and Tooru has come to realize that he doesn’t have as much strength or endurance as his friend yet, even if he’s been working hard at volleyball practice to fix that.

“You okay?” Hajime grins, leaning over him, hands braced on his knees.

“Peachy,” Tooru wheezes, and flings a handful of snow lazily up at Hajime’s face. Most of it misses and lands on Tooru’s chest.

Hajime just laughs and flops down next to Tooru. He starts sliding his arms and legs back and forth, idly making a snow angel as Tooru lays there and grins at the sky.

“This is fun,” Tooru says quietly, mostly to himself. The sky is crystal clear, a light blue that’s almost not blue at all, and it’s a bit mesmerizing.

“Yeah, I like the snow, too,” Hajime answers, and Tooru fully turns his head to be able to study his friend through his glasses.

“I meant being friends with you.” He turns back to the cloudless expanse above him, and adds, “but I guess the snow’s okay, too.” He grins and sneaks a sideways glance at Hajime, just in time to see his cheeks color.

“Whatever,” Hajime replies gruffly. He launches himself upward, then says, out of nowhere, “Race you to the slide! Last one there’s a rotten egg!”

Hajime bolts for the treehouse ladder, and Tooru yells, “No fair, Haji! You were already up! That’s  _cheating_!”

He hurls himself after his friend, Hajime’s exuberant laugh filling the backyard in a way that makes Tooru’s chest squeeze.

 

***

 

Hajime is unsurprised by Tooru’s extensive knowledge of space when their teacher tells them to pair up for their next science assignment. They’ll be building a 3D model of the solar system, she says, and each group is going to work on a different celestial body.

At first, Hajime’s a little concerned about Tooru’s immediate reaction to the project, but Hajime quickly realizes that it’s excitement, not nerves, causing Tooru to practically vibrate in place. He’s trying desperately not to explode with the sheer force of his anticipation. Hajime’s lips quirk in amusement, and he turns back to their teacher’s instructions with a small snicker.

Tooru notices Hajime’s reaction to his—well, he’ll call it  _enthusiasm—_ and feels a little smug. If Hajime thinks he knows the extent of Tooru’s astronomical expertise, he’s got another thing coming. Tooru know so many more facts than he’s shared with Hajime in the six months they’ve been friends.

Tooru nods approvingly when they’re assigned Uranus. He knows all kinds of things about the 7th planet and, on the first day of the project, as he and Hajime mix their flour and water together to start their paper mache, Tooru spews forth facts with the speed and precision of a launched rocket.

“Did you know,” he starts slowly, but gaining speed, “that Uranus has 13 rings? Everybody thinks Saturn’s the only one that has rings, but they’re wrong. Uranus has 13 of them, and everybody thought there were only 11 of them until 2003 when they discovered another one, and then they discovered  _another_  one in 2005, so there’s 13. They’re made up of dust particles and boulders, and were probably made when one of Uranus’s moons crashed into something and exploded. Oh! It has 27 moons, too, whole ones, I mean, and they’re mostly ice and rock, but the biggest one, Miranda, has some canyons and terraces, and—”

“Oi,  _Tooru_ ,” Hajime interrupts.

Tooru pulls up short, and stares expectantly at Hajime.

“Save some for tomorrow, nerd,” he complains. When Tooru obliges and goes silent, Hajime’s surprised that it’s that easy.

He looks up, and the expression on Tooru’s face horrifies him.

His face is turning red and blotchy, like he’s trying to hold back tears, and his glasses do nothing to hide the shining moisture welling in his eyes. His usual pout is twisted into something more—it’s complete  _sadness_ , and it’s taken over Tooru’s features so fast that Hajime has whiplash.

“What?” Hajime asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

Tooru gasps out a little sob, and bolts for the classroom door, flinging it open and running down the hallway like there’s a monster on his trail.

The teacher splutters at Tooru’s unapproved exit, and Hajime jumps up. “He had to go to the bathroom really bad,” Hajime says to the teacher. “Can I go check on him and make sure he’s okay?”

Their teacher narrows her eyes, but nods after a moment, handing him the hall pass. “Don’t goof around, Hajime. Make sure he’s okay, and then come right back, understood?”

“Yes,” Hajime says, and he takes the hall pass. As soon as he’s over the threshold and in the hallway, he forgets his teacher entirely, and focuses on finding Tooru.

It isn’t that hard. He hears a loud snuffling as he jogs past the bathroom, so he turns in and is relieved to see Tooru sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, tucked in between a sink and a paper towel dispenser. His knees are pulled up, his face hidden behind them, and his arms are wrapped around his shins.

Hajime feels sick to his stomach.  _What happened to make him feel this way?_  he wonders.

“Tooru?” he asks tentatively, and his throat catches when Tooru tightens his grip on his legs. Hajime steps closer, slowly, carefully, and realizes that Tooru’s shaking again, and this time it’s because he’s upset.

Hajime feels like a jerk.

“Tooru,” he tries again, leveling out some of the quiver out of his own voice—of course he’s upset too, Hajime’s not dumb, it had to have been something Hajime  _said_ , and knowing that this is his fault ties his stomach in knots. “Tooru, tell me what’s wrong. What did I say?”

A long silence stretches between them, punctuated by sniffles and hiccups, and Hajime starts to wonder if their teacher is going to coming looking for them soon.

Then Tooru whispers something, and it’s too quiet for Hajime to hear, so he crosses the last of the distance between them, and kneels down in front of his friend. “Tooru...”

“ _Nerd_ ,” Tooru says, a little louder, and he lifts his head to meet Hajime’s gaze. His voice is one part accusing, two parts hurt when he continues, “You called me a  _nerd_.”

Hajime just stares at Tooru for a minute, confused. One word did this?

“So?” he replies bluntly. “It’s ‘cause you are.”

Tooru flinches and buries his face behind his knees again.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a nerd, Tooru,” Hajime adds.

“Yes, there is!” Tooru spits, straightening to face his friend with ferocity. “Being a nerd makes you a target! Being a nerd gets you  _hurt_. I am  _not_  a nerd,” he says vehemently. Tooru pauses, his eyes sliding off to the side, unable to hold Hajime’s gaze any longer, and he adds quietly, “Not anymore.”

Hajime’s mind races, putting two and two together, and he grimaces in irritation at himself. How had he missed this fragility in his friend? Even though they’d spent all this time together, Hajime had failed to see the vulnerability that Tooru had hidden under layers of enthusiasm and happiness.

“You’re supposed to be my  _friend_ ,” Tooru mutters, and Hajime’s stomach twists.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently. “If you don’t like it, I won’t call you that again. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Tooru’s eyes slowly shift back to Hajime, and Hajime adds, “Whoever hurt you, if they try it again, tell me. If I’m not allowed to call you nerd, neither are they.” His tone is final, and Tooru’s eyes soften.

Tooru launches himself at Hajime and wraps his arms around Hajime’s chest, tucking his face into Hajime’s shoulder. He squeezes tight, and in the moment that it takes Hajime to get over his surprise and respond in kind, Tooru’s exterior cheer returns. He sits up before Hajime has done anything more than circle his arms around Tooru’s shoulders, and the puffy redness of Tooru’s eyes is the only sign that something was wrong in the first place.

Hajime lets him go, frowning at how easily Tooru dons this mask, and makes a silent promise. This isn’t going to happen again. He’s going to pay better attention to Tooru, and he’s going to learn to see through Tooru’s mask, so that his friend doesn’t hurt anymore—at least, not alone. Not while Hajime is right here.

“I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with being smart,” Hajime grumbles, and Tooru pouts.

“But you told me to shut up about Uranus!”

Both boys stifle a giggle at the word  _Uranus—_ they’re nine-year-olds sitting in an echo-prone  _bathroom_ , after all—then Hajime replies, “I was just teasing. How do you know so much, anyway? How do you keep all the facts straight?”

Tooru shrugs. “I just read ‘em and they stick in my head.”

Hajime grunts. If only it was that easy for him. “Come on, wash your face quick so we can go back. We’ve got to make Uranus.”

Tooru can’t help it. He giggles again.

 

***

 

Tooru makes swift work of splashing warm water on his face, and Hajime hands him paper towels to pat dry with. The whole process helps some—now  _all_  of his face is red, not just blotchy parts around his eyes—but Tooru knows it’ll be obvious to the teacher that he was crying.

He straightens his spine and lifts his chin. He’s not alone. Hajime’s not mad at Tooru, he doesn’t hate him for being a know-it-all. They’re still friends, and he doesn’t have to go back to being lonely. Everything’s fine.

It surprises Tooru when Hajime asks, tentatively, if they’re okay.

“Of course, we’re okay!” he says. “I mean...you’re not mad at me, right?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” Hajime asks, a little confused.

Tooru brushes off Hajime’s new question in favor of answering the first one. “Then we’re definitely okay,” he says.

His words don’t soothe away all the lines of concern on his friend’s forehead, though, so Tooru improvises. He slides his hand into Hajime’s, and gently tugs his friend down the hall.

Hajime blushes a little bit, but he doesn’t take his hand back. Instead, he tightens his fingers around Tooru’s just the tiniest bit, and lets Tooru pull him back to class.

Everything’s fine.

 

***

 

Tooru can’t hear anything over his screaming muscles. Why is volleyball, so  _hard_? He’s practically ready to pass out, lying sprawled on his back on the gymnasium floor, chest heaving as his body demands more oxygen. This getting stronger business is  _work_.

Tooru loves every second of it. He’s determined to be as strong as Hajime, to keep up with his friend, who seems to be a natural at applying his strength to the game, even if it means Tooru has to work a hundred times harder.

He will  _not_  be a disappointment, not after everything it took to get here in the first place.

Hajime offers his hand and Tooru takes it, letting his friend pull him to his feet. Hajime grunts with the effort, but hoists Tooru up anyway. They walk to the edge of the gym where their bags lay discarded, and dig for their water bottles.  _Ice water has never tasted so good,_  Tooru thinks idly.

“Boys, do you have a minute before you have to leave?” their coach asks, and Tooru pulls the water bottle from his lips and nods feverishly. He’ll take any tips he can get if it will help make him stronger.

The other kids on the team file out of the gymnasium and head to the front entrance of the youth center, where their parents are waiting. Tooru takes a moment to be proud that his coach has singled them out for advice. He hopes it’s good.

“Hajime, I just want to say that you’re doing exceptionally well for a beginner. I’ve very proud of the way you work so hard to make your spikes strong. Next week, we’ll focus on aiming those spikes to maximize their potential, okay?”

Hajime nods, mouth set in a slight downward arc as he thinks about how to properly aim a spike.

The coach laughs at his expression. “Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll show you how, okay?”

The lines of concentration between Hajime’s brows ease a bit, and he nods again. “Okay,” he agrees.

“And Tooru,” the coach says, “I think I’d like to try you in another position next week.”

Tooru wilts, his eyes settling on his new volleyball shoes with dismay. How can he keep up with Hajime if he doesn’t play the same position?

“Oh, don’t be sad! I think this will suit you much better!” Coach squats down in front of Tooru to pull his gaze back up from the floor, and says, “I’d like you to try being the setter.”

Tooru pauses, then says, “...the setter?”

“Mmm, the setter,” Coach replies, a soft smile alighting on his face. “I’ve noticed that you have really good aim, and that’s super important for a setter! They’re the ones that handle the ball the most, but they only touch it for a second each time, so being able to control that second is very important, to make sure that the ball goes exactly where the spiker needs it to be so they can score. And I think you can do it.”

Tooru gapes, his jaw hanging a bit slack as he absorbs the praise buried within his coach’s request. “You think I can do it?” he asks slowly. He remembers back to the day they first played with a volleyball during recess, and how it felt to toss the ball to Hajime and see him strike it down. He remembers how good it felt, and thinks that he wouldn’t mind trying it again, now that he knows better how to play.

“Yes,” Coach says. “I think you can do it. You’re a hard worker—I’ve seen that already in the way you approach spiking practice. And I think you’ll have a good sense of what kind of tosses the other players will need to be successful. So, what do you say?” he asks, standing up. “Are you interested in giving it a try?”

A shiver of anticipation works its way through his limbs, and he sticks his hand out. Their coach chuckles a bit, but takes Tooru’s hand and grins as Tooru pumps his arm with enthusiasm.

“I want to try,” Tooru says, and he doesn’t miss the way Hajime’s lips quirk up in support. He turns slightly to meet his friend’s gaze, and adds, “I won’t let you down.”

 

***

 

It’s a little chilly outside, but the summer is still young and Tooru snuggles deeper into the cocoon of blankets he and Hajime have hauled out onto the grass.

“Stop hogging all the covers,” Hajime gripes.

Tooru gasps. “I’m definitely  _not_  hogging them!”

“You are, you just stole the warmed-up spot and now I’m  _cold_  again,” comes Hajime’s next complaint, and Tooru grins.

Hajime just gives him a flat look in response.

“ _Fine_ , here,” Tooru sighs exasperatedly. He scoots sideways, pulling the blankets with him, until he’s shoulder to shoulder with Hajime. He sits up enough to tuck the edges back in around his friend before settling back down to stare up at the midnight sky.

“Better?” he asks, and Hajime grunts. Tooru’s long since learned the language of Hajime’s non-verbal communication, and he judges this particular noise to mean Hajime’s satisfied with the new arrangement.

“Why are we even out here?” Hajime asks plaintively. “It’s too cold.”

“Because!” Tooru chirps. “There’s going to be a  _meteor shower_ , Haji! And it’s not  _that_  cold.”

“Tooru, we live in the city. You’re not going to be able to see it.”

Tooru scrunches up his face in a masterful pout, and Hajime groans.

“I still wanna  _try_ ,” Tooru sulks. A moment later he adds, “If we never watch the stars, we’ll never find aliens.”

“You’re still on that? Aliens don’t exist, Tooru. The  _President_ even said so,” Hajime reasons.

“Of course, he said so! It’s a  _cover-up_ , Haji,” Tooru scoffs. “It’s a  _conspiracy_. They’re keeping the aliens all to themselves, instead of sharing the news with everyone. I just hope they’re nice.”

“The aliens?” Hajime asks, amused.

“The  _government_. If they’re not telling us about the aliens that landed at Area 51, it’s probably because they’re performing experiments on them,” Tooru explains. His tone takes on a chiding tone as he continues, “I hope they know what they’re doing. They really shouldn’t start an intergalactic war, not before they even inform citizens that the aliens are real, anyway.”

Hajime turns his head to the side to stare at Tooru, until Tooru turns to look back.

“What?” he says, nonplussed.

“You’re so weird,” Hajime mutters, his tone woven with equal parts awe and concern.

“So?” Tooru grins, and turns back to the night sky. “You like me anyway.”

Hajime snorts in amusement before pulling the blanket up to their chins and settling in to wait.

Twenty minutes later, Tooru grabs Hajime’s hand beneath the blanket and shakes it in his excitement. “Did you see it?! Did you  _see_  it?! There! There’s another one! I told you~” Tooru sing-songs in delight laughing.

“I see it,” Hajime agrees begrudgingly, “You don’t have to yank my arm off.” But Tooru just giggles out his happiness and doesn’t let go, and Hajime doesn’t mind.

It’s cold for summer, anyway, and Tooru’s hands are warm.

 

***

 

Hajime and Tooru have their first camp-out in the treehouse in their backyard. It’s Hajime’s birthday, and their parents grant the boys’ request to sleep outside with amused smiles, leaving Hajime and Tooru to pack their backpacks with survival gear and snacks. (Hajime packs a flashlight, and Tooru packs pudding cups. Neither of them is surprised by the other’s choice.)

Tooru’s excited beyond measure. He and Hajime are finally going to have an adventure like Rocky and River do in the books, and he’s jittery just thinking about it. Hajime notices, and asks what’s making him so antsy, and Tooru spills everything, telling his friend about his favorite books and how he always wanted to have a friendship like theirs.

“I even started to write a story about it once,” Tooru admits, flopping back on the treehouse floor with a delicate  _thunk_.

 

“So, what happened?” Hajime asks, a little curious.

“You moved in,” Tooru says, turning to face Hajime, and a soft smile stretches across his face.

“I meant in the story,” Hajime mutters. A warmth creeps up his neck and face, and Tooru giggles when he realizes his friend has interpreted his honest answer about the contents of the story to mean that Tooru stopped writing the story because Hajime arrived and Tooru didn’t have to wish for friendship anymore.

“Same thing, really,” Tooru shrugs, trying, and failing, to straighten out the grin on his face.

“Shut up, Tooru,” Hajime mutters. “Roll out your sleeping bag, already.”

“Sure, Haji~! Hey! Are we gonna tell ghost stories tonight? We should tell ghost stories!”

“What? No! I’m not letting you share my sleeping bag just ‘cause you scared yourself! No ghost stories!”

Tooru activates his Secret Weapon, and Hajime grimaces.

He holds out as long as he can, but Tooru’s pout is nothing if not effective, and Hajime finds his resolve sliding sideways. “Fine,” he sighs. “But you’re staying in your own sleeping bag!”

Tooru beams. “Of course I will! I won’t be scared at all~”

 

***

 

Hajime’s eyes flutter open when Tooru’s mom peeks in on them when she gets home from work. The ladder up to the treehouse creaks under her weight, and he tries to sit up so he can see who it is...but can’t.

Confused, he looks down at his arm, and sees Tooru clinging to it in his sleep, both hands wrapped around Hajime’s elbow, his forehead pressed up against Hajime’s shoulder. His eyes are squeezed shut tightly, and his mouth is moving in a silent murmur.

Hajime sighs, resigned, and lays back down.

Tooru’s mother’s silhouette appears in the doorway, from her shoulders up, and Hajime waves his free hand at her sleepily.

“Everything okay?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” Hajime says. “We told ghost stories, though, so Tooru’s sleeping like an octopus.”

She laughs softly in the darkness, “He can’t handle scary things, can he? It’s a good thing you’re here for him, Hajime.”

He grunts quietly, half asleep again, and she whispers once more, “Go back to sleep. See you in the morning.”

And Hajime drifts back off, oddly comforted by the warmth of his friend beside him.

 

***

 

It’s their first day of middle school, and Tooru is  _nervous_. Hajime can tell because he won’t shut up.

“—and I told Mom that I’d be  _fine_ , that you’d be here, but she was all worried about me being in a new school, and I had to sit her down and explain—”

“ _Tooru_ ,” Hajime interrupts, intent on shutting down his friend’s anxiety before they get to the school. “Have you considered the idea that she’s nervous about it because  _you’re_  nervous about it?”

“What?!” Tooru asks, his voice bordering on shrill.

Hajime pokes at his ear with one finger and wiggles it back and forth, to regain as much of his hearing as possible. It doesn’t work.

“I’m not  _nervous_ —”

“You are,” Hajime asserts, his steps steady as they walk, “and that’s  _fine_. I know how hard you worked to fit in at our last school, but you’re not starting from scratch. I’ll be there, you know.”

Tooru settles some—Hajime can see it in the way his shoulders loosen, and his fists uncurl. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

“But you keep forgetting,” Hajime says, prefilling the last half of Tooru’s mantra.

In the two years that they’ve been friends now, Tooru’s probably said it a hundred times. Hajime’s never fully understood why it requires him verbally reminding Tooru of his presence to get through Tooru’s insecurities, each and every time, but he’s taken it on as his responsibility. It’s gotten less frequent lately, and Hajime’s glad for it, but big changes like a new school year and a new school are still enough to rattle Tooru, even if he won’t admit it.

It doesn’t matter. Hajime has learned to read Tooru like Tooru reads books. He can see through Tooru’s bluster and he’s happy to contradict his friend’s anxiety when necessary. It just happens to be  _extra_  necessary today.

“Yeah,” Tooru says. “I guess. I mean, I  _know_  you’ll be there. But will we be in the same class again?”

“What’s it matter?” Hajime asks, his answer already planned. “We can’t talk in class anyway. And we’ll still have lunch together, and we’ll walk to and from school together, and I’ll still help you with your math homework, and we’ll have volleyball practice together—”

“Ughhhh,” Tooru groans. “Don’t remind me. What if they already have a million setters on the team? They won’t even want me!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There aren’t a million kids in our school, so they can’t have a million setters,” Hajime reasons.

“Haji~” Tooru whines, and Hajime grins. If Tooru’s trilling his displeasure, the worst of his nerves are alleviated.

“Plus,” Hajime adds for good measure, “I bet you’re better than all the other 6th graders that try out for the team. We’ve been practicing, you know?”

“Yeah,” Tooru says, grinning. “I know. You’re gonna blow them away with your killer spike, Haji.”

“My killer spike is only killer because your toss goes to the right place at the right time,” Hajime grumbles, suddenly a little self-conscious in his role as Uplifting Friend.

Tooru’s grin widens, and he throws his arm over Hajime’s shoulder as they round the last corner and approach school grounds.

“Don’t worry, Haji. I’ll send you some beautiful tosses tonight at our first practice.”

Hajime’s not worried at all. He’s sure that Tooru will do just as he’s said.

 

***

 

“Mooom,” Tooru yells, testing to see if his mother’s home.

She isn’t.

Silence greets him, and he sighs, knowing full well that he should have expected it. Just because Tooru’s not as lonely anymore, now that he’s got Hajime, doesn’t mean that his mom’s work schedule is any lighter than before.

He toes his shoes off at the front door and drops his backpack to hang is jacket up in the coat closet, then goes in search of Kuro. He finds the furry beast, who’s now fully grown at four times the size he was when Tooru first brought him inside, curled up on the heat duct in his bedroom.

Tooru scoops him up, huffing a bit at his ever-increasing weight, and plops down on his bed to snuggle. Kuro gives him a flat look, clearly displeased by having his nap disturbed.

“I know,” Tooru mutters, rolling his eyes at the cat and scratching the scruff of his neck. “I’m  _rude_.”

Kuro sneezes, and Tooru flinches away instinctively.

“Ughhh, Kuro. Gross!”

The kitten levels his flat stare at Tooru again, and Tooru sighs and lets him hop down.

“ _Fine_ ,” Tooru says. “Now who’s rude?”

He plods down the stairs slowly, and aims himself at the refrigerator. He pulls the milk out and carefully pours himself a glass, then grabs a packet of pop-tarts from the pantry and settles at the table.

When he’s done with his snack, he grabs his backpack and heads upstairs to start his homework. They’re learning subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators, and Tooru wants to get it done before he forgets how.

He pulls his workbook out of his bag, opens it to the first page of their assignment, and realizes it’s too late. Sighing, he goes to his mom’s room, snags the cordless phone off her dresser, and dials.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mrs. Iwaizumi. It’s Tooru,” he says, making his way back to his desk as he talks.

“Oh, hi Tooru! How was your day today?”

“Good. I need help with my math again, though,” he sighs, already so over the concept of numbers.

Hajime’s mom laughs, a warm, throaty sound that makes Tooru smile. “Okay, let me give him the phone.” A rustling noise, then, muted, “Hajime! Tooru’s on the phone.”

A minute later, Hajime speaks into the receiver, grumpiness apparent in his voice. “You know, if you wanna be an astronaut like you keep saying, then you’re going to have to work harder in math class. Math and science  _go_ _together_ , you know?”

“Just like you and me. I understand science, you understand math,” Tooru replies, not missing a beat. “We  _complement_  each other. The least you can do is help me with my homework.”

“Don’t make me get a dictionary, or I’m hanging up.”

Tooru grins wickedly. “To complement: to make complete or perfect.”

A click sounds in Tooru’s ear, followed by the hollow buzz of the dial tone. He sighs, and dials again.

No answer.

Tooru lifts his fist and pounds on the shared wall between their bedrooms. A long pause fills the room, then Hajime knocks back, the sound of it reluctant, and Tooru dials a third time.

“You’re a word freak,” Hajime says in greeting. “How much do you even read, anyway?”

“Will you just help me with my math?” Tooru wheedles.

“You know you could have just come over with your homework, right? Then I wouldn’t be able to hang up on you.”

“But it’s cold outside, Haji~! I don’t wanna go out there,” whines Tooru. “Just help me over the phone,  _pleeeeease_?”

“Are you pouting right now? You know that only works in person, right?”

Tooru pouts as loudly as he can over the phone.

Hajime sighs. “Alright. What number are you stuck on?”

“Um,” Tooru says, staring apprehensively down at the problems in front of him. “Number one?”

 

***

 

Tooru doesn’t expect to be bowled over when he turns around. He  _expects_  Hajime to be there, to answer the question on Tooru’s lips, but instead he gets a spiked volleyball to the face.

A snapping noise jars him as he sprawls violently backwards, landing on his tush with a sharp, pained exhalation and rocking back onto his shoulder blades. He doesn’t hit his head especially hard on the floor, and it only takes him a fraction of a second to come back to himself and begin absorbing his surroundings again.

Tooru can hear the coach scolding the kid that hit the ball, and the kid replying in sincere tone, but it’s all background noise, because Hajime is there in a second and Tooru’s head is pillowed on his knees. Tooru can tell without his glasses that it’s Hajime, by the fingers carefully dragging his bangs away from his eyes. He doesn’t need to see to recognize his—

Crap.  _His glasses_.

He springs upright, sitting up so fast that he’s maybe a little dizzy, even if he won’t admit it, and patting the floor around him for his glasses.

_Please don’t be broken, please don’t be broken, please don’t—_

“Hey, hey, lay back down until Coach can look at you,” Hajime demands, but Tooru ignores him.

“Haji, I need my glasses. I can’t see anything without my glasses!” Tooru’s feeling around down by his feet now, still hoping they’re within an arm’s length of his body. When Hajime doesn’t reply immediately, Tooru asks, “Haji, where  _are_  they?!”

“Hey, just calm down,” Hajime says, taking Tooru’s hand in his own, and Tooru suddenly realizes that’s a terrible sign. Hajime stretches out Tooru’s fingers and deposits Tooru’s glasses in his palm...in pieces.

Tooru brings them close to his face and squints at them, his face falling as he does. They are  _so_  broken. They’ve snapped down the middle, both lenses have popped out, and one of the arms is twisted in a way that doesn’t seem reparable. His mom is going to be so mad.

“Will you lay back down now?” Hajime asks softly, pulling at Tooru’s arm to get him to recline.

Tooru pulls his arm out of Hajime’s hands and sifts through the carnage of his glasses. Maybe the lenses are salvageable and all he’ll need are new frames. He smooths the pad of his thumb over both sides of each lens, and wilts when he realizes that they’ve both been scratched. So much for that idea.

Tooru sighs, accepting his fate.

“Tooru...” Hajime cajoles.

“Haji...” Tooru replies, matching his tone. “I’m fine. I don’t even have a bump on my head,” he argues.

“Are you sure?” Hajime asks, hovering.

“I’m sure. Just...I can’t see anything. Can you help me up?”

“You can’t see anything? How blind are you?” Hajime asks, curious.

“Really,” Tooru answers gloomily. “Your face is blurry.”

“My face—” Hajime stutters. “I’m only, like, a foot away!”

“I’m aware,” Tooru gripes. “Well. I’m not, actually, ‘cause I can’t see how far away you are. But I’m aware that I’m unaware.”

Hajime bursts out in peals of laughter, startling the other kids that have gathered to see if Tooru’s okay. And he is—if Tooru’s talking circles like that, he really is okay.

“Let’s let the Coach look at you, and then we’ll go home,” Hajime says, a smirk settling onto his lips when he sees Tooru’s pout. “What are you upset for? Coach has to make sure you’re okay, and it’s not like you can play any more today if you can’t see.”

“I’m not gonna be able to see to go home, either,” Tooru grumps.

“I’m not gonna let you get hit by a car or anything. You’ll be fine,” Hajime grumbles. He takes the pieces of Tooru’s glasses from his frowning friend and puts them in his pocket, then takes Tooru’s hands. He pulls Tooru up slowly, letting him get his feet situated underneath him.

Coach looks him over thoroughly, sees no sign of concussion or any other injury, besides the magnificent bruise that Tooru’s likely to have painted across his face tomorrow, and lets them go on their way. Tooru’s glad really, because his nose stings from the impact still, and he just wants to go home and curl up with Kuro, and a bag of frozen peas draped across his face.

Without asking, Hajime slides his hand into Tooru’s and leads the way, gently guiding his friend along a step behind him.

Tooru takes small steps, unsure of his footing at first, but as they make their way along the route home, he gains more confidence and steps up next to Hajime. Hajime’s quiet on the way home, and Tooru’s spends the time worrying about how, exactly, he’s going to break the news of the broken glasses to his mother.

The more he thinks about it, the more he feels sick to his stomach with worry, and when Hajime doesn’t think to warn him that a tree root has lifted a section of the sidewalk lopsidedly, Tooru trips over it spectacularly. Arms flailing, his hand ripped out of Hajime’s with the force of his fall, Tooru doesn’t manage to catch himself before his knees skid across the concrete, ripping his jeans and taking a layer of skin with it.

His palms are scraped, too, from the attempted save, and Tooru stares at them, six inches from his nose as blood wells to the surface. It’s too much, too abrupt, and warm tears threaten to escape from Tooru’s eyes. He squeezes them shut to try to keep them from falling, but it just pushes them down his cheeks, and when Hajime lifts him by his elbow gently up and off his knees, Tooru knows that his friend sees the wet streaking his face.

Hajime’s not the one with broken glasses, after all.

“Hey,” Hajime says quietly. “You take a volleyball to the face, no sweat, but a crooked chunk of sidewalk brings you down?”

Tooru just snuffles in response, scrubbing the back of his hand against his eyes (okay, that feels  _so_  weird without glasses on) and staring at the blur that is his friend.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault you fell. I should have warned you,” Hajime sighs. “Here,” and he turns around and squats down. Tooru stares down at him dumbly, trying to figure out what Hajime wants, until Hajime grumbles, “Are you getting on or not?”

And Tooru  _scrambles_. He drapes himself across his friend’s back, careful to tuck his skinned knee under Hajime’s arm so Hajime doesn’t jostle it when he stands up. Tooru winds his arms around Hajime’s shoulders, and Hajime  _lifts_. He grunts a bit with the effort, but gets to his feet with relative ease and shifts Tooru’s weight up just a bit with a small, careful heave.

Tooru settles on his friend’s back, tucking his face down into the curve of Hajime’s neck, closing his eyes against the sting in his palms. He rides like that, in the care of his best friend, the rest of the way home.

 

***

 

The next day, Hajime stands on the front step, staring at Tooru as his friend locks the front door, because he’s not wearing glasses, and he seems to be able to see just fine.

“Hey,” Hajime says, unsure of how to cope. Did he give away a piggyback ride for  _nothing_ yesterday?

Tooru pulls his keys from the lock, the green alien rubber keychain catching on the fabric of his jeans as he shoves the key in his pocket. “What?” he asks, and looks up at Hajime.

Hajime’s words evaporate faster than he can collect them as he stares into the warm chocolate of Tooru’s eyes. He looks so  _different_  without his glasses—maybe that’s just the blossoming bruise on his face? No, no, it’s definitely the lack of glasses—and Hajime may feel a little lost. “Um,” he says eloquently.

Tooru frowns, and Hajime can see the wrinkle form between his eyebrows, almost as if in slow motion.

“You have nice eyes,” Hajime blurts awkwardly. He flushes from the base of his neck to the top of his head and adds, “I never really noticed ‘cause of your glasses.”

He grimaces. That didn’t make it any better.

Tooru perks up, his expression shifting from confused to pleased-as-punch in a heartbeat. “Do you think so?”

Hajime shakes himself out of it and starts down the walk toward the street. “What happened to needing glasses?” he finally manages to ask, his own eyes cast down upon the concrete.

Tooru skitters to catch up, and says, “Oh! I got contacts last night.”

Hajime’s gaze snaps up and he realizes he’s staring at his friend again. “Contacts?” he forces out.

“Yep! We were gonna get another pair of glasses, but they suggested I get  _two_ frames, one for regular every-day wear and one for during volleyball, and the sports ones were so expensive and the insurance would only cover one pair, so I asked about contacts because I could wear those all the time, and the guy helping us said the insurance would cover them but I was too young, and then Mom told him I’m responsible enough to try it, so they gave me some sample ones while they order some with my prescription.”

Hajime wonders where in there Tooru managed to find an opportunity to breathe.

“Right,” he says, his eyes sliding back to the path before them. “Contacts.”

“It’s weird putting them in. I have to touch my  _eyeball_ , Haji! And then they feel kinda funny, but Mom says I shouldn’t blink too much because of that, ‘cause we don’t want ‘em to  _move_. Isn’t that creepy? They can  _move_  on my  _eyeball_!”

Tooru’s grinning like a maniac at the idea of it, and Hajime wonders where the soft, squeamish kid from yesterday disappeared to.

It’s probably for the better. Tooru’s got too many good things going for him to let one bad day bring him down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: high school boys being idiots, domesticity, and a dose of sexual tension.
> 
>    
> As always, kudos & comments are treasured. Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callie_ks) if you ever want to scream about volleydorks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime is standing in the doorway of the high school gymnasium, watching Tooru tease a gaggle of girls across the courtyard. He frowns, and Issei sidles up on his right.
> 
> “Gonna go drag your toddler back here?” he asks, a lazy smirk already forming on his lips.
> 
> “Look at him,” Takahiro says, approaching from the left and elbowing Hajime in the ribs.
> 
> Hajime grunts. The girls talking to Tooru titter and blush visibly in reply to something the audacious flirt says, looking scandalized and loving it.
> 
> “It’s like he already knows he needs a spanking for bad behavior,” Takahiro adds in awe. He turns his sly grin on Hajime, draping his arm over Hajime’s shoulders, and continues. “He’s just looking for it in the wrong place.”
> 
> “Shut it,” Hajime snaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so 90% of this chapter was written in a fever dream. I don't even remember writing half of it, but honestly, it's the best piece of this story. It's 16.5k of high-school-boy shenanigans, angst, raunchy jokes, and a love that was meant to be.
> 
> I'm posting it a bit later than I wanted to - so sorry for that! - but when I was going through my final edits I realized an important piece was missing. I had one more scene I needed to add (because the 14k it was _before_ I added this scene wasn't ridiculously long to begin with *eye roll*), so it took me a bit longer to smooth all the edges and polish it the way it deserved.
> 
> Also...you'll notice that the fic is now listed as 5 chapters long... WHOOPS. Someone *cough, cough _Kiki_ * made a specific request for a specific scene, and while I consider the story finished at the end of chapter 4, once this extra scene was planted in my brain I couldn't help it. So there'll be a (much) shorter epilogue to follow. I don't know when I'll be able to post it. I'm hoping to keep to my weekly schedule, but I'm not a fast writer (this is why I don't post WIPs, RIP ME), so I can't make any promises.
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with me. I hope you love this chapter as much as I do. <3

 

Tooru is completely caught off guard when their volleyball coach calls him into his office before practice. They’ve only got one more regularly scheduled game left in their season, and Tooru’s itching to start practice. They have to win if they’re going to compete at the state level, and winning means putting in extra time perfecting…well, everything.

“Tooru, have a seat,” Coach says.

Tooru does, perching on the edge of the seat and suppressing the urge to bounce his knees impatiently.

“I wanted to talk to you before I announce it to everyone else,” Coach begins, “to make sure that you’re willing to take on the responsibility, but I’d like to name you Team Captain for next year.”

Tooru stares dumbly at his coach.

Coach clears his throat into the silence, and asks, “What do you think?”

Tooru gapes at him for a full minute before he realizes he’s supposed to answer. “I’m...not the right choice,” Tooru says hesitantly. “I don’t think I’ll be a good captain.”

Coach frowns for a moment, then says, “Tooru, do you think I’ve done right by this team, as a Coach?”

“Absolutely,” Tooru answers, confusion at the change in topic sliding across his face.

“Do you trust me to make good decisions for the team? To focus our practices in a direction that benefits each member? To know when to substitute reserve players in during a game?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tooru says.

“Then trust me when I say you’re the best choice for captaining the team next year. You work incredibly hard, and you’ve got the trust and respect of your teammates. You have natural leadership qualities, and I’m not going to pass that up. I want you as Captain. So stop thinking about whether or not you _can_ do, and start thinking about whether or not you _will_ do it. Because I _know_ you can, and I know you’ll be great.”

“...Are you sure?” Tooru hesitates.

“Positive. Is that a yes?” Coach asks, leaning forward with that same look in his eyes as he gets when their team has cornered an opponent and all but guaranteed victory.

“I guess so,” Tooru replies, dazed. “What about Vice Captain?”

“That’s for you to choose. Make sure it’s someone that you work well with, and that they’ll support you in your responsibilities.”

“Hajime,” Tooru says, without missing a beat.

Coach leans back in his chair, an amused expression overtaking his features, and chuckles. “I thought you’d say that. Talk to him after practice today. I’ll tell the team right before we wrap up tonight.”

“Okay,” Tooru says.

Throughout practice, Tooru feels a little off-kilter, a little out of sync. He doesn’t let that feeling bleed into his practice, though. He uses it as fuel to work harder and burn brighter.

When they’re done for the evening, and Coach is about to release the team to change and head home, he tells them that Tooru will be their next captain. Tooru stands there, eyes clouding with worry—what if he’s _not_ as good at this as Coach thinks he’ll be?—as his teammates crowd around and slap him on the back, congratulating him.

He smiles thinly, the nauseous feeling in his gut multiplying with each celebratory touch, but then Hajime catches his eyes, and the warm pride residing there in his friend’s gaze quells Tooru’s nausea immediately.

A small smile quirks on Hajime’s lips, and Tooru feels the warmth that Hajime planted in his stomach swell up through his torso and curl through his chest, wrapping around his heart reassuringly like a blanket on a frigid winter day.

He’s not alone. He can ask for help. Hajime will be there with him.

When he asks Hajime to be his Vice Captain during their walk home, Hajime says, “Of course, dumbass.” The words come out gruff, but in the fading daylight, Tooru can see the pink spreading around the rims of Hajime’s ears.

Instead of fighting his own blush, Tooru revels in the confidence that this shared moment creates.

He’s got months and months and months before the next season begins—they have to wrap up their _current_ season first, and finish their junior year—but when next year rolls around, Tooru’s going to do his best.

He’s going to work his hardest, and he’s not going to let anyone down.

 

***

 

Hajime is standing in the doorway of the high school gymnasium, watching Tooru tease a gaggle of girls across the courtyard. He frowns, and Issei sidles up on his right.

“Gonna go drag your toddler back here?” he asks, a lazy smirk already forming on his lips.

“Look at him,” Takahiro says, approaching from the left and elbowing Hajime in the ribs.

Hajime grunts. The girls talking to Tooru titter and blush visibly in reply to something the audacious flirt says, looking scandalized and loving it.

“It’s like he already knows he needs a spanking for bad behavior,” Takahiro adds in awe. He turns his sly grin on Hajime, draping his arm over Hajime’s shoulders, and continues. “He’s just looking for it in the wrong place.”

“Shut it,” Hajime snaps. For the two million, seven hundred eighty-three thousand, six hundred twelfth time, Hajime regrets Tooru’s discovery of contacts and hair product.

That settled, he goes on to regret his three-and-a-half-year long friendship with Takahiro and Issei. Or maybe he should regret their being friends with each other? Because together they’re enough to push Hajime’s blood pressure to abysmally high levels.

Then again, Tooru does the same to him. Maybe it’s genetic.

Hajime sighs, long-since resigned to needing a cardiologist before he’s even reached his prime years, and goes to fetch his toddler.

Issei and Takahiro snicker as he stomps toward his victim, bellowing, “Oi, Trashikawa! Get back here! Practice isn’t over until clean-up is over!”

 

***

 

Tooru doesn’t bother to knock on Hajime’s front door anymore. He hasn’t in years. He just lets himself in and makes himself at home.

Hajime’s given up on fighting it.

“What do you want?” he grunts, as Tooru collapses on a chair at the kitchen table and flops unceremoniously across the clean surface in front of him.

“Haji~” Tooru whines, and Hajime ignores him. He’s cutting a chicken breast into small chunks, and Hajime has a rule about ignoring Tooru’s whining while holding a knife.

It’s for everyone’s safety, really.

Tonight, however, Tooru is _persistent_ , and after he moans Hajime’s name in the most pitiful way possible three times more, Hajime slaps the knife down flat on the counter and turns around to look at the pest invading his dinner preparations.

Hajime holds his hands out awkwardly in front of him, to keep from getting raw chicken juice on the strangle-able neck laid out before him. “What, Tooru?”

“I’m hungry,” Tooru whimpers, turning his head to look up at his friend. His Secret Weapon—it’s not really a _secret_ weapon anymore, but it still has the _impact_ of one—already in place on his face, his brows drawn together and his bottom lip stuck out in a world-class pout.

Hajime counts to five— _slowly—_ and turns back to the chicken. “Then _go feed yourself_ ,” he grinds out.

“But your cooking is so much better than mine,” Tooru replies. “I wanna eat what you’re making.” A pause, during which Hajime sucks in a breath large enough to satisfy his monumental need to sigh, and then Tooru continues, “Actually, what _are_ you making?”

Hajime’s sigh makes its escape, and he reaches for the second chicken breast, making precise cuts so the pieces are evenly sized. “Stir fry,” he finally admits.

“Oh!” Tooru says, suddenly more lively than only moments before. “I’ll wash the rice!”

Hajime sighs. Again. He’s beginning to realize that his body thinks sighing is a normal breathing pattern.

Tooru gets the rice cooker from the bottom shelf of the pantry, and measures three cups of uncooked rice into the pot. Then he lifts the pot out of the warming unit and takes it to the sink. Hajime watches him wash his hands, and then fill the dish with water. Tooru slides his lithe fingers into the water and curls them through the rice slowly, massaging the grains with one soft motion after another.

Hajime burns, both internally and externally, and shifts his gaze back to his own task, determining that he needs to have a rule about ignoring Tooru’s hands while holding a knife, too. Focusing on the sharp object in his hand, Hajime finishes cutting the chicken into chunks, scrapes the meat into a pan with a bit of olive oil, and deposits his cutting board and knife in the sink.

He steals the water from Tooru, who’s starting his third and final rinse of the rice now, long enough to wash his hands, then gets out a clean cutting board and knife and the broccoli, carrots, celery, peppers, and snow pea pods. He starts with the broccoli, which is easy to chunk quickly, and sets it aside in the large bowl that Tooru sets out for him.

Tooru grabs the peppers, washing them quickly, and then trades them for the celery. Hajime keeps working, falling into a steady, seamless rhythm as Tooru preps the vegetables one by one and hands them to him for chopping.

It doesn’t surprise Hajime anymore, how well he and Tooru work together. They’ve been a synchronized pair in a hundred different ways and for so many years that it would surprise him more if they managed to trip over each other.

It’s one of the things he both loves and hates about their relationship.

When the stir fry is done, they sit down together to eat in comfortable silence. Hajime doesn’t bring up how Tooru helped himself to the meal, and Tooru doesn’t bring up how Hajime made enough for two.

The company is nice, though.

(After a moment, Hajime starts to say, “Pass the soy sauce,” but Tooru’s already handing it to him, anticipating his request.

The brunette grins at Hajime as he sprinkles the dark liquid on his dinner, then turns back to his own meal, making ridiculous faces of pleasure with each bite.

Hajime pointedly does his best to ignore him, regardless of the lack of sharp objects in the near vacinity.)

 

***

 

“Ughhhhhh,” Tooru complains, and Hajime isn’t quite sure what cause Tooru has to make such a noise.

Hajime’s sitting on his bed, his back to the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. Tooru is sprawled across Hajime, his stomach on Hajime’s knees, his ankles twisted together in midair, and his face pillowed on the back of his hands. His textbook and notebook are laying precariously on top of the pile of blankets balled up by his head, temporarily abandoned due to the urgency of Tooru’s drama.

“You did this to yourself, you know,” Hajime says, turning the page of his book. He’s got another three chapters to finish before he can begin his report, and it’s looking less and less like he’ll actually get through it tonight. “You didn’t have to take Calculus.”

“Yes, I doooo,” Tooru whines. “If I’m going to get into UCLA I have to take it and do well.”

Hajime lets his arms fall and rest on Tooru’s back. He closes his book, marking his place with a finger, and turns to Tooru. “You know colleges look at your transcripts from junior year when they determine if you’re accepted, right?”

“It’s way too late to drop the class now, Haji. They’ll see if I drop it, and they won’t take me,” Tooru reasons unreasonably.

His words are slightly muffled by the blankets he’s practically inhaling, and Hajime rolls his eyes at the spectacle of it. “You know they’re gonna offer you a scholarship for volleyball anyway,” he says. “What’s it matter?”

“I don’t _know_ anything, so it matters. Plus, how can I be an astronomer if I can’t do calculus?” Tooru lifts his head and narrows his eyes at Hajime. “I think you just want to get out of helping me with my math homework.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Hajime agrees. “I have a report to write, Tooru. I can’t do your calculus homework for you.”

“Don’t do it _for_ me!” Tooru gasps, horrified. “Just...explain it again.”

A sigh escapes Hajime, and he shoves gently at Tooru’s hip. “Sit up, then. I can’t help you if you’re clinging all over like an octopus.”

A smile immediately blossoms on Tooru’s face, and he wriggles back into a sitting position, pulling his textbook and notebook onto Hajime’s lap, like it’s a table. Hajime is so unsurprised by this maneuver that it doesn’t even trigger another sigh. He wonders idly if this is progress, or a step backwards.

Hajime glances back at his place in the book long enough to memorize his page number, then sets the book aside completely. “You owe me an hour of silence for this,” he begins the bargaining.

Tooru’s mouth falls open. “An hour?! A whole _hour_?! Thirty minutes, tops.”

“Forty-five.”

“Thirty-five,” Tooru grits out.

“Forty, final offer,” Hajime replies, lifting one eyebrow.

Tooru groans. He knows that a single raised eyebrow means he’s lost. “Haji, _please_ don’t make me turn it off that long—you _know_ I work better with background noise—”

“Then play something instrumental. K-Pop is not conducive for focusing.”

Tooru sticks his tongue out at his friend, but gets up to change the playlist anyway. “You’ve never appreciated Jungkook’s voice properly,” he grumbles as he settles back down on the bed again.

“I appreciate it just fine,” Hajime says evenly. “That’s why it’s a distraction.”

Tooru huffs, and points to the first problem in his book. “Earn your forty minutes, jerk.”

Hajime swallows a chuckle, and leans close to explain how to solve the first equation.

 

***

 

Hajime’s hauling the trash and recycling out to the curb when he realizes that Tooru’s half of the house is completely dark.

He frowns. Normally Tooru’s got the light on in his room if he’s doing homework, or in the kitchen if he’s making something to eat. Hajime walks around to the back of the house and sees that the bathroom light isn’t on either. That rules out a late-night bath to soothe sore muscles after the end of an extended practice.

It’s a bad sign. It means Tooru’s not home yet, and his self-imposed extended practice is probably still in full swing. Hajime checks his watch and frowns harder. It’s 8 o’clock at night.

It’s way too late.

He steps back into the house long enough to yell up the stairs that he’s taking the car to fetch Tooru from school, grabs the keys off the kitchen counter, and climbs into his family’s sedan.

It’s a short drive to their high school, and Hajime follows the path from the parking lot to the gymnasium building in the dark. He’s walked it so many times that it doesn’t matter that he can’t see it.

As he gets closer to the gym entrance, though, the path is lit by the brightness filtering out of the building. He hears the telltale bounce of a volleyball on hardwood flooring, twice, then the squeak of well-used sneakers, a short pause, the smack of a palm hitting the ball, and a moment later, the accelerated rebounding of a served ball striking the court and then the wall behind it. Even if Hajime hadn’t known Tooru was here, even if he hadn’t come here specifically looking for his friend, he’d know that sequence of sounds anywhere.

After eight years together, that particular pattern sounds like home.

Drawn to it like a moth to flame, Hajime stands in the doorway and watches as Tooru serves again. His eyes drink in Tooru’s powerful running approach, his graceful leap into the air, the supple curve of his form, the forceful swing of his arm, his controlled landing. Hajime drinks it in, wondering when— _why_ —Tooru decided to give volleyball everything he had and then some.

“Tooru,” Hajime says, and the setter pauses, looking up from where he’s reaching into the ball cart, surprised to see Hajime in the doorway.

Hajime crosses the threshold and walks toward Tooru, bending over to scoop up a stray ball along the way. He drops it in the cart once he’s stopped in front of his friend, then meets Tooru’s eyes.

“You’ve worked hard enough for one day,” he says.

Tooru doesn’t move to clean up, and Hajime is suddenly a little afraid his choice of words was too pushy, and that Tooru will dig in his heels. He feels his words reverberate through the gymnasium, echoing off walls with all the gentleness of one of one of Tooru’s serves; they scream through him, making him afraid he’s been too pushy, that Tooru will return to his practice, stubborn as ever.

He tries again, softly.

“Let’s go home. C’mon, I’ll help you clean up.”

And this time, Tooru moves to follow.

 

***

 

“Have you decided where you want to go to college yet?” Tooru blurts out.

Hajime’s eyes snap to his friend, but Tooru’s staring pointedly at the movie playing on the TV, his silhouette wiped intentionally clean of any emotion that would give away his reason for asking.

“No,” Hajime grunts bluntly.

“Still want to go to IIT?” Tooru asks, his voice bordering on wavering. He clears his throat.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Tooru pauses before his next question, knowing he’s asked it several times before and Hajime’s never had an answer, but he decides to ask it again anyway. “Have you decided what you want to study yet?”

“They’ve got a good Architectural Engineering program,” Hajime says, surprising him.

As Tooru takes that information in, a silence between them follows, interrupted only by a muted scream from the TV.

Hajime abruptly decides he needs to make popcorn. He’s not really hungry, but he needs to have something to do with his hands, so that the twitching in his fingers isn’t as obvious.

He slides sideways out from under Tooru’s legs, straightening the blanket they’re sharing with Kuro, and pads into the kitchen. He pulls a bag of microwave popcorn from Tooru’s pantry, and shucks its wrapping into the trashcan.

“Do you want me to pause it?” Tooru calls.

“Nah,” Hajime replies. It’s _Alien_. They’ve seen it a hundred times.

He grabs a bowl when the microwave dings, and shakes the popped kernels into it. He sprinkles a little extra salt over the top, even though Tooru will whine over it, and goes back to the couch.

Tooru wordlessly lifts his legs into the air, and Hajime sits back down on the couch, settling in as Tooru drapes his limbs across Hajime’s lap once more. Kuro gives them each a disgruntled look, his napping place on Tooru’s chest jostling as Tooru adjusts.

“LA’s a long way from home,” Tooru says quietly, and Hajime knows what he’s thinking.

He’s thinking that he’ll be in a new city, 2,000 miles from the only people he knows, without the physical presence of family or friends to reassure him that everything’s okay.

He’s going to be alone for the first time in eight years, and Hajime knows that Tooru is afraid of it. Hajime’s seen glimpses of that loneliness and fear in Tooru’s eyes over the years—when they played in their first official volleyball match and the game point came down to Tooru’s serve; when they sat for the math portion of the PSAT and Tooru froze mid-exam; when they had their first big fight and Hajime snapped at Tooru to just go home and leave him in peace—and Hajime knows that it’ll eat Tooru alive the second that Hajime’s not there to hold it at bay anymore.

Hajime doesn’t know what to do about it, though, so for now he just lays his right arm across Tooru’s shins and rests his hand on the outside of Tooru’s knee, and says, “I know.”

After a while, Tooru mumbles something, and Hajime turns to look at him. “The popcorn’s getting cold,” Tooru repeats, and Hajime stares dumbly down at the bowl resting in left hand.

“Right,” he says. Setting their worries aside for the meantime, Hajime says, “Do you want some? I salted it.”

Forewarned, Tooru grimaces, but opens his mouth in response anyway, and Hajime rolls his eyes. “I’m _not_ feeding you. You have arms.”

“They’re pinned under Kuro,” Tooru complains.

It’s an exaggeration. Hajime can clearly see the brunette’s arms are wrapped around the cat, keeping him centered on Tooru’s chest, but it’s not anything that he can’t extricate himself from. Kuro would get over it.

“Pleeease,” Tooru fusses, and, like every other moment in Hajime’s life that revolves around something Tooru wants, Hajime gives in.

He lowers a couple pieces toward Tooru’s lips, but pulls back at the last second to warn, “If you bite me, I’m going home.”

“I would _never_ ,” Tooru gasps dramatically. Hajime recognizes the mischievous twinkle in Tooru’s eyes and tries to brace for whatever’s coming, but it’s far too late.

“Unless,” Tooru continues, grinning like the Cheshire cat, “you _wanted_ me to.”

Blushing madly, Hajime lobs the popcorn in his hand at Tooru’s face and snorts, satisfied, when it bounces off Tooru’s nose and chin and falls to the floor.

Predictably, Tooru’s impish expression twists into a pout. “C’mon, Hajiiiiiii,” he whines, “Feeeed meeeeeee~”

“‘Feed me, Seymour,’” Hajime mutters. “Like feeding the damn plant was ever a good idea.”

As he drops a few kernels in Tooru’s waiting mouth, Tooru’s lips grazing his fingertips unintentionally as they close around the morsels, Hajime realizes his metaphor fits better than he intended.

Tooru swallowed him whole years ago, and he was too dumb to see it coming.

 

***

 

“I want ice cream,” Takahiro says, and Hajime groans. If there are only two magic words in the whole universe, “ice” and “cream” are it. Especially when Tooru hears them paired together.

Tooru lights up. “Ooooh, yeah! We should get some on the way home after practice!”

“Too right, we should,” Takahiro nods in agreement. “I’ll drive.”

“I have a paper due tomorrow, guys,” Hajime cuts in, hoping to put the kibosh on this before it gets out of hand.

It’s much too late.

“Then don’t come, Grumpy Pants,” Tooru says, sticking his tongue out at Hajime.

“Yeah, Grumpy Pants,” Takahiro parrots. “Then don’t come.”

Like Hajime can trust the two of them on their own in an ice cream shop on a weeknight. No, he has to go, to make sure they don’t ingest enough sweets to kill a giant. Or have a food fight and get permanently banned from the shop.

That last option starts to sound more appealing as Hajime considers it. It would certainly solve this problem for the future.

He turns to Issei, casting a hopeful glance at the last member of their group of friends. Issei studies him for a moment, then asks, “Tooru, what kind of ice cream do you wanna get?”

“Salted caramel swirl,” Tooru replies promptly. It’s his favorite, and all of them know it.

Hajime narrows his eyes in suspicion.

“Well,” Issei says, his sleepy expression fading completely under the force of the smirk spreading across his features. “I, for one, couldn’t possibly come between this young man and the salty, sticky goodness he desires.”

Hajime spends a moment vacillating between burning embarrassment and abject horror, while Takahiro and Tooru cackle.

He clearly cannot trust the _three_ of them. Anywhere. At any time.

“Shut it,” Hajime snaps. “You’re only getting one scoop, and then we’re going home.”

Tooru grins in victory.

After they’ve cleaned up and changed, Tooru dashes across the parking lot, hollering “Shotgun!” as he leaves the other three behind.

“So. How mad is he gonna be when he finds out Issei called it before we hit the locker room?” Takahiro asks Issei, and Hajime swallows a snort.

“He’ll live,” Hajime says, “But think about all the whining you’ll have to endure while you eat your ice cream.” He starts off after Tooru, and Issei and Takahiro follow.

“Oooh, he’s got a good point,” Issei says. “Okay, so Tooru can have it on the way there, but I call dibs on the way back.”

“Oh, nice assist there, Hajime. Way to defend your lover boy’s claim to the front seat,” Takahiro applauds.

“He is _not_ my lover boy,” Hajime defends, with the air of someone who’s said it a million times and is unimpressed with the need to say it again. “And what am I, chopped liver? I don’t ever get dibs on the front seat?”

“You’re literally the shortest one here,” Takahiro replies. “You will _never_ get dibs on the front seat.”

“The backseat’s not all bad, though,” Issei quips. “Just wait until we stuff Tooru back there with you. You’ll be singing its praises then.” He waggles his eyebrows at Hajime suggestively, and Hajime rolls his eyes and does his best to ignore the warmth creeping up his ears.

“Seriously? Why is everything a sex joke with you two?” Hajime asks.

“The better question is ‘Why is everything a sex joke with you and Tooru?’” Issei replies.

Takahiro leans toward Hajime and whispers loudly from behind his hand, “The answer is because you’re so thirsty for—”

“Okay!” Hajime interrupts, coming to a stop by Takahiro’s car. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”

Tooru is leaning against the car, a slight frown on his face, waiting for Takahiro to pull his keys from his pocket and unlock their doors.

“You still look really warm from practice, Haji,” he says, noting Hajime’s flushed appearance. “Is that why you’re suddenly excited for ice cream?”

“He just needs to cool down, a bit,” Takahiro grins. “He’s a little thirsty from how _hard_ practice was for him today.”

Issei chuckles as he climbs into the backseat and pats a furiously blushing Hajime on the knee. “Don’t worry, _Haji_ , we’ll get you a _tall_ drink of water for that thirst of yours.”

“Don’t make me strangle you, Issei,” Hajime mutters under his breath, and Issei just chuckles again.

 

***

 

“Don’t get any ice cream on my upholstery!” Takahiro says as Issei leaves the ice cream shop, cone in hand.

“You wouldn’t even be able to tell if we got ice cream on your car’s upholstery,” Tooru replies, handing the clerk a five-dollar bill and swiping at a drip running down his fingers with his tongue. “That thing’s older than we are.”

“That _thing_ is your ride home,” Hajime cuts in. “Have a little respect for it.”

“Thank you, Hajime,” Takahiro says, feigning surprise at his chivalry. “But she has a name. It’s—”

“We know what it is,” Hajime grimaces, desperate to prolong the other half of Takahiro’s sentence until they’re out of the shop. “And I’m not using it.”

He almost succeeds. As they push the door open and head back out into the evening chill, Takahiro charges forward, loudly.

“It’s Hooker, Hajime. Her name is _Hooker_.”

“Dear God,” Hajime moans, glaring at the sky and shaking his head at whatever deity is watching down on this moment.

Issei overhears Takahiro as they approach, and he grins. “Gee, Hiro, why’d you name your car Hooker?”

“Please, no,” Hajime begs fruitlessly.

“Why, thanks for asking, Issei. It’s ‘cause you just wanna get inside her and _drive it home_ , you know?” Takahiro grins wickedly, and Issei laughs.

“ _This is a family friendly establishment,_ ” Hajime hisses.

“But it costs money to do it, right?” Tooru chimes in.

“Why am I even _friends_ with you people? Honest to God, I _quit_. I’m gonna _walk_ home,” Hajime grouses.

“What, you don’t want to take her for one more spin before she’s done for the night?” Issei asks as he climbs into the front seat.

“ _Jesus_ , Issei,” Hajime complains, opening his door and folding himself in behind the driver’s seat.

“Hey, shotgun is mine, Issei! Get your ass outta my seat,” Tooru says.

“Nope,” Takahiro replies, “He called it as we were leaving the school. He was nice enough to let you go first.”

“Hirooo, that’s not how it works~” Tooru whines.

“ _This_ is the part of this conversation that bothers you?” Hajime asks incredulously. “Just get in the back seat, Tooru.”

“It’s not tall enough! I hit my head every time,” Tooru pouts, tucking himself into the backseat carefully.

“Then open the window and stick your head out,” Takahiro says, putting the key in the ignition and turning it.

“Fine, I will!”

And to Hajime’s utter shock, Tooru does it. He rolls down the window as Takahiro backs out of their parking spot, and sticks his head out and grins dopily. Like a dog.

“Get in here!” Hajime snaps. “Hiro, use the _childlock_ on this idiot, will you?”

Laughing, Takahiro, _does_ use the childlock to deactivate Tooru’s controls, then immediately starts to roll up Tooru’s window. Unknowingly with Tooru’s head still outside the car.

Several things happen in rapid succession. Tooru squawks as the window closes far enough to lightly brush against his neck, Issei chokes on his ice cream when he realizes that the sound came from _outside_ the car, Takahiro slams on the breaks before they enter traffic, and Hajime launches himself over the back of Takahiro’s seat, scrabbling desperately for the controls so he can release Tooru.

Hajime gets the window down far enough that Tooru can turn his head and pull it back inside the vehicle, and then sits there, stunned, as the three other boys in the car laugh so hard they can barely breathe.

Issei’s gasping for air around his guffawing, and Takahiro’s giggling so hard he’s crying, and Tooru’s shaking so hard with laughter that his ice cream is dripping all over the backseat.

“Sh-shit!” Tooru wheezes, “I need some napkins!”

“Dammit, Tooru—did you get—ice cream—on my upholstery?” Takahiro swears, through another fit of laughter.

“Better clean it up fast,” Issei spits out between gasps, “Hooker will be pissed if you leave that salty, sticky shit inside her.”

“Why am I even friends with you people?” Hajime whimpers again, handing over a wad of paper napkins and sinking back into his seat, his elbow propped up on the door and his hand over his eyes.

His friends just collapse farther into their peals of laughter.

 

***

 

“Haji!” Tooru calls up the stairs, “Your mom’s going to the grocery store and she asked us to water the garden while she’s gone!”

Tooru hears the toilet flush, water run in the sink, and then Hajime opens the bathroom door and glowers down at Tooru.

“You seriously couldn’t wait two minutes for me to finish in the bathroom and come back downstairs?” he grumps, and Tooru grins.

“Nope!” Tooru chirps. “Now let’s _go_. I wanna get it done fast so she doesn’t give us that look when she comes back and we’re playing Mario.”

“What is your obsession with that game? You realize we’re seventeen, right? That there are infinitely better video games out there than the one that’s older than we are?” Hajime asks dryly.

Tooru hisses at Hajime—Kuro would be proud of that one, it was a good impersonation of Irritated Cat™—and says, “ _You take that back._ ”

Hajime just laughs and leads the way out to his mom’s garden box.

They grab a large plastic bowl on their way through the kitchen, and unwind the garden hose from its rack. Hajime sets to picking the ripe tomatoes off the vines—how are they even still producing fruit this late in the season?—and Tooru gives the hose nozzle a test squeeze to make sure the pressure’s set at the right strength.

And then he gets an idea.

A wicked grin sliding slowly across his face, Tooru surreptitiously turns the pressure up just a bit higher than is safe for vegetables and he takes aim. At Hajime.

The first shot of water hits Hajime directly in the chest, making him jump in shock and look up, scandalized, at Tooru. Tooru _laughs_ , quickly takes aim again, and shoots Hajime a second time, maintaining the spray of water. Hajime drops the bowl with the tomatoes in it and surges toward Tooru.

The two of them run through the backyard, Hajime chasing and Tooru drenching his poor friend, for a full minute before Hajime gets smart and heads for the water spigot that the hose is attached to.

“Nooo!” Tooru shrieks, turning the water on Hajime’s back and legs, and then when that doesn’t stop him, he drops the hose and tackles Hajime directly. Hajime grunts under Tooru’s weight, but manages to roll over and pin Tooru underneath him.

“What was _that_ for?” Hajime barks.

Tooru just turns on his pout, and says, “You didn’t take back what you said about Mario.”

Hajime looks at him, incredulity warring with amusement on his face, until the amusement wins and he lets out a deep laugh.

Tooru’s not laughing, though. He knows he should be—this is the point of his horsing around—but he’s a little too distracted by Hajime laying on top of him, shaking with his laughter in a way that makes it clear to Tooru that Hajime’s clothes are soaked through and clinging to his body, and his body is pressed up against Tooru’s in an appealing way.

His face starts to burn—Hajime’s his _friend_ , and friends don’t think this way about each other—so he shoves Hajime to the side and scrambles for the hose again. Hajime’s ready for him this time, though, and he wrestles the hose away and turns it on Tooru, soaking him in retaliation.

They’re both lying flat on their backs, panting and grinning and drenched through every layer of clothing, the hose abandoned between them, when Hajime’s mother returns from the grocery store. She takes one look at them, shakes her head, and says, “My tomatoes better not be bruised.” The boys grin ruefully at each other, and get up to finish their original task. When it’s complete, they each head for their own rooms to dry off and find a change of clothes.

As Hajime steps into his kitchen, Tooru catches sight of him peeling off his wet shirt, the muscles in his back surging under sun-kissed skin, and suddenly Tooru’s mouth is very dry.

He does his best to ignore the fact that it’s the only part of him that is.

 

***

 

Hajime’s having a pretty good day when he hears Tooru’s pterodactyl screech of excitement through their shared bedroom wall, and groans.

Sighing, he saves his current progress on his essay and reaches for his cell phone, his thumb hovering over the spot where the “accept” button will pop up any second—

And there it is. He slides the pad of his thumb across it, and puts it to his ear.

“I heard your obnoxious shriek through the wall, Tooru. Is someone murdering you?”

“Haji!” Tooru screams his excitement. “They just called, and I got it! I got a full ride to UCLA on a volleyball scholarship!”

Hajime sits, stunned into silence, at his desk. He forces a smile onto his face, because he knows Tooru will hear in his voice if it’s not there. “Congratulations, Tooru.”

“I gotta call Mom!” he bellows, and Hajime can hear him in stereo, through the wall and the phone line. He winces.

“You called me before your Mom?”

“I’ll come over after I get off the phone with her!” Tooru practically yells, all volume control lost in his moment of victory.

“No— Tooru, I’m in the middle of an ess—” The line clicks, and Hajime sighs. So much for making a dent in his assignment.

Hajime closes his textbook and leans back in his chair, stretching his facial muscles in preparation for the endless smile Tooru’s going to expect to see.

And he was having a pretty good day, too.

He knows why it suddenly feels like that’s changed.

 

***

 

Tooru can’t sleep.

He’s gotten the best news of his life today, and he’s shared it with the people that matter the most to him, but he’s still jittery and unsettled, like something’s not right.

At first, he figures it’s just the excitement, the adrenaline rush of the phone call from the Coach at UCLA that’s got the hair on his arms standing on end. But as the excitement settles, as his mind begins to process the information he’s received today and make sense of it, Tooru realizes that something else is making him feel so wound up.

He wasn’t fooled by Hajime’s tight smile and placid enthusiasm earlier—he knows what it means, and it’s not like he was expecting anything different. They’ve talked about it a couple of times, or, at least, they’ve talked _around_ it a couple of times, but it’s never been a sure thing until now.

Tooru’s been scouted and offered a full scholarship. There’s no way he can turn that down, not when it means the difference between being able to go to a four-year university—one with a good Astronomy program, no less—and being resigned to part-time classes at the local community college while he works to pay for tuition.

He’s going to UCLA because it’s the best option—his only option—and there’s no way around the fact that this means he and Hajime are splitting up after graduation and going separate ways.

Now that he thinks about it, it’s no wonder he feels so unsettled.

He rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow. He wishes he didn’t feel this way, that it’d be easy to move on to this next stage in his life, but Tooru’s still afraid of being alone, of _feeling_ alone even when he isn’t, and Hajime’s always been a salve for that particular wound. How can he leave him? How can he let Hajime go?

Tooru misses him already, even though they haven’t left yet, even though he’s just on the other side of the wall, literally less than five feet away. He knows that his life is better with Hajime in it, and he can’t stand the thought of that changing, of not having Hajime there to spike Tooru’s toss, of not marathoning Firefly at _least_ once a month.

They belong like this, the way they are right now, Tooru thinks, and abruptly he remembers the conversation he and his mother had years and years ago, right before he wrote the story that brought them Kuro.

Abruptly, he realizes that the way he thinks about Hajime sounds kind of like the way she described love.

He can’t breathe. He pulls he pillow away from his face, gasping for oxygen like it’s nowhere to be found.

He can’t _possibly_ be in lo—

The way he thinks about Hajime—he’s sure it’s just because Hajime’s good looking, because Tooru doesn’t like girls. He’s tried flirting with them, and they always respond...well, in a way that makes Tooru think he’s _good_ at flirting. But it never makes him feel anything, until Hajime comes stomping towards him, and—

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit._

Tooru shoves his face back into his pillow, and struggles to get his head on straight. He’s gonna be fine. In less than a year, the two of them will go their own ways, and he can learn to let Hajime go. 

Tooru exhales slowly, and tells himself that he’s gonna be fine.

 

***

 

“Tooru, you coming?” Takahiro calls.

The brunette reaches into the ball cart for another projectile, and Hajime frowns.

“In a bit, Hiro. Go ahead without me. I’m just gonna practice a few serves,” Tooru says.

Hajime hesitates, remembering the last time that he had to come back and pick Tooru up from his self-imposed practice—it was only four days ago, how could he _not_ remember?—and the time before that—a week ago—and the time before _that_ a week and a half ago. This is becoming a bad habit, and Hajime doesn’t like it, but it’s not like he can stop Tooru. Tooru has always done his own thing, always been so driven that Hajime doesn’t know how to keep up. How can he get in the way of that?

Especially now that he’s got the volleyball scholarship and it’s a sure thing that he’s going to UCLA in the fall.

“Don’t make me come back and pick you up, Trashikawa,” Hajime grunts, and he turns toward the locker room with Issei and Takahiro.

They joke around a bit as they strip out of sweat soaked clothes and shower off, but Issei and Takahiro leave Hajime alone for the most part, sensing that he’s not in the mood to deal with their sass.

Takahiro leaves first, muttering something about picking his sister up from piano lessons, but Issei hangs back, waiting for Hajime to stuff the last of his gear in his bag. They leave together, walking toward the parking lot in silence, until Hajime can’t take the silence anymore.

“Do you know what you’re doing after graduation?” he asks, and Issei nods.

“Psychology at UI Urbana-Champaign.”

“Psychology?” Hajime asks, a little surprised.

“Psychology.” Issei snorts, “So I guess you’re talking to the right person. What about you?”

Hajime pauses while it sinks it that Issei already knows something’s wrong and is trying to help. Then he says, “Architectural Engineering.”

Issei replies, “That sounds like you. Where you going for that?”

“...I don’t know.”

“That what’s been bothering you?” Issei asks.

“Sort of.” Hajime doesn’t want to say it out loud and make it real, but he can’t keep rolling it around in his head anymore. He’s not getting anywhere. He takes a deep breath, then uses it to voice his concern, the words slithering across his tongue unpleasantly. “If it was just me, then yeah, I’d know where I’m going.”

“You’re worried about Tooru being on his own,” Issei says, understanding what Hajime can only bring himself to imply.

Feeling a little sick to his stomach, Hajime vomits words everywhere. “Yeah. He doesn’t look after himself, physically or emotionally. We’ve never been separate since the day I moved into the other half of the townhouse. We do _everything_ together—volleyball, cooking, studying. I don’t think I’ve had a day completely to myself since I met him. He’s just...always _there_. So how am I supposed to stay here and go to IIT when he’s got a full ride to UCLA? How the hell is he gonna make it, by himself, 2,000 miles from home?”

Issei is quiet for a moment as they finally reach his car and he pulls out his keys. He walks around to the driver’s side, unlocks his door, pulls it open, tosses his bags into the backseat, and folds his arms on the roof of the car, leaning on it while he thinks.

“Get in,” he says finally. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Hajime pulls the backseat door open, slings his gym bag and backpack onto the back seat, and then settles himself in the front, leaning back into the seat and closing his eyes.

“Buckle your seatbelt, dumbass,” Issei scolds. “I’m not getting a ticket because you’re too emo to practice basic safety in my car.”

Hajime shoots Issei a look, but reaches for the buckle and does as he’s told.

They ride in silence for a good five minutes before Issei misses the turnoff to go to Hajime’s. “Issei, where are we going?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Seriously?” Hajime asks. Hajime realizes that Issei didn’t say he’d give Hajime a ride _home_ , just that he’d give him a ride, so he supposes he doesn’t have too much room to argue, unless— “You have your wallet with you, right?” Hajime asks suspiciously.

“Yeah. But you’re still paying. Consider it a consultation fee,” Issei grins mercilessly.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Hajime groans.

Issei pulls into the parking lot of a mom & pop diner and parks, and Hajime gets out of the car, looking at the sign.

“The Castle’s Kitchen?” Hajime asks. “I’ve never been here.”

“They’ve got good food,” Issei replies. “Not that greasy shit Hiro’s always after.”

 _At least there’s that_ , Hajime thinks.

They settle at a table stashed away in a quiet corner of the diner even though the place is practically empty because it’s a weeknight, and Hajime peruses the menu. He’s surprised by how inexpensive everything is. How does this place stay open?

Issei orders hamburger steak and Hajime orders the fajitas, and then they each sit there, sipping on ice water and waiting for the other one to pick up where their conversation left off.

Hajime’s nothing if not patient—he’s grown up with Tooru after all—and finally, Issei breaks the silence. “So, you’re worried about Tooru going off all on his own,” he says.

“Yeah,” Hajime says softly, unrolling his silverware and fiddling with the paper napkin.

“Have you stopped to wonder,” Issei asks slowly, “if you’re worried about _you_ being all alone?”

Hajime freezes. He...hasn’t actually. He hasn’t thought about it at all.

Suddenly it’s _all_ he can think about, how he hasn’t had a day completely to himself in 9 years, and not once did he think, in all those years, that he needed a chunk of time away from Tooru. How he’s always there to help Tooru up when he does something stupid. How he starts preparing dinner for two even though Tooru hasn’t magically appeared in his kitchen yet.

How volleyball was Tooru’s idea, and Hajime followed him blindly into the sport because Tooru wanted to do it.

How sci-fi movies are never his first choice, but that’s practically all he and Tooru watch together.

How he hated cats until Tooru forced him to get along with Kuro, and now he doesn’t mind them.

How they’d spent countless nights lying flat on their backs in the backyard, sharing blankets and staring at stars _just in case_ , as Tooru liked to say.

How he’s torn over his choice of colleges—which will directly affect his _future—_ because he and Tooru are going to be 2,000 miles apart if he chooses to go to school at the Illinois Institute of Technology like he’s always planned to.

Issei just sits in silence, watching Hajime think—watching him _feel_ —through that half-lidded, misleadingly sleepy gaze of his, until Hajime looks down at his hands and realizes that he’s shredded the napkin between his fingertips.

“Did that help?” Issei asks carefully, studying Hajime’s expression with caution.

“Maybe,” Hajime replies softly, his hands falling still.

Their food arrives, and they eat quietly, Issei giving Hajime the space that he needs to think about the headful of questions that he’s planted there.

When they finish, Hajime reaches for the check, unprompted, and pays without argument.

 

***

 

That night, when Issei finally drops Hajime at home, he foregoes finishing his essay and heads straight for Google.

He types “top 10 architectural engineering programs in the US” in the search bar, and waits for his answer to appear.

 

***

 

In the days following Hajime’s conversation with Issei, Hajime is quieter than Tooru is used to. He doesn’t snap at Tooru for being clingy, he doesn’t engage in Tooru’s endless banter nearly as often as usual, and he doesn’t fight back when Tooru puts on K-Pop to study by.

It bothers Tooru to know that something’s bothering Hajime, and he hasn’t told Tooru what it is.

He knows Hajime will come around when he’s ready, but waiting is _hard_ , so Tooru pours himself even further into his volleyball practice. Now that he’s gotten a scholarship to UCLA, he can’t afford to slip, even a little bit.

He stays later and later each night after team practice is over, pushing himself further than the day before. He’s got to be better. He’s claimed his place at UCLA, and now he has to _keep_ it, to prove that he’s _earned_ it. Tooru thinks that’s the harder goal of the two.

It’s a nice distraction from Hajime’s distraction, though, so Tooru sweats through his discomfort with Hajime’s preoccupation in the only way he knows how.

 

***

 

It’s 10 o’clock at night and Hajime’s lying in bed, earbuds quietly feeding him what little peace of mind he can find in the frenzy of his recent thoughts, when his phone buzzes to life on the mattress next to his pillow.

It makes him jump, tensing up his shoulders and ruining his calm, and he scowls as he pats around for the phone and holds it up to see who’s bothering him at this hour.

Tooru.

He’s not surprised.

He answers the call with a terse, “I was almost asleep, dumbass—”

“Haji—” Tooru gasps, cutting him off, and Hajime is instantly one-hundred-and-ten percent awake.

There’s _pain_ in Tooru’s voice.

“Where are you?” Hajime asks immediately.

“The gym,” Tooru answers, and Hajime can hear how he’s biting back a sob.

Hajime’s chest clenches at the sound. He’s already bolting across his room and pulling on the jeans he left draped over his desk chair.

He throws a tee on and grabs a hoodie, telling Tooru, “I’m on my way. Don’t move. Seriously. Not an _inch_ , Tooru. Don’t make it any worse than it is.”

“Okay,” Tooru replies, and he sounds so small to Hajime’s ears.

He yanks the phone toward his chest long enough to yell to his parents that Tooru’s in trouble and he’s going to get him, and rockets down the stairs. He has keys in his hand and he’s out the door faster than he’s ever been before, adrenaline pumping furiously through his veins like someone injected it straight into his heart.

“Tooru, I’m in the car, so I have to hang up. But I’m gonna be there in five minutes. Count it out.”

“Don’t speed,” Tooru pants out. “It’s not that bad—”

“I’ll speed if I damn well please,” Hajime growls out. “Five minutes. _Count_.”

“Okay, five minutes,” Tooru gives in, and Hajime can hear him quietly in the background of the call— _one, two, three, four_ —as he backs down the driveway at a speed he knows his parents will lecture him for later.

He doesn’t care.

“Keep counting,” he says. “I’m coming.” He throws the car into drive, and races toward the boy that needs him.

He gets there in four minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Tooru is collapsed on the floor off to the side of the gym, by his towel and water bottle—presumably having pulled himself over to where he’d left his phone—when Hajime finds him, curled into a ball and clutching his thigh just above his right knee in an attempt to immobilize the joint. It’s already red and swelling, and Hajime’s stomach turns at the sight of it.

The panic on Tooru’s face is evident, and Hajime’s sure it has something to do with his scholarship—will they stand behind their offer if he’s injured?—but at this moment in time, Hajime couldn’t care less. Tooru’s future is less important to him than Tooru’s present, especially when Hajime sees that Tooru’s knuckles are white with pain and the strain of gripping his leg to hold it steady.

Hajime takes a deep breath as he crosses the gym, and pushes his fear and worry away. Tooru needs him calm, right now.

“Hey,” he starts softly. “I’m gonna help you stand, okay? Don’t put any weight on your right leg, and keep it from moving as best as you can.”

“Okay,” Tooru says, and Hajime tucks his hands underneath Tooru’s arms.

Praising his extra trips to the weight room to keep Takahiro from having a chance at beating him in arm wrestling, Hajime squats and _lifts_ , taking care to go slow and steady. Tooru still whimpers as the angle of his knee shifts, but after a second Hajime can hear him grind his teeth down on the pain and lock it away.

Tooru’s strong, and Hajime’s never been more proud of it.

Once Tooru’s standing, Hajime helps him keep his balance while they both catch their breath. When Tooru has steadied himself, he nods, Hajime says, “I’m going to pick you up and carry you to the car, okay?”

Tooru nods again, and Hajime braces himself.

The brunette isn’t lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. He’s tall and thin, but layered with corded muscle. He’s _dense_ (in more ways than one, Hajime’s always thought), but Hajime’s strong. He’s always made a point of being strong enough for whatever Tooru needs, and this moment in time is no exception.

Hajime wraps his right arm around Tooru’s waist, gripping tightly, and lines the left one up behind Tooru’s thighs, to catch and support Tooru’s legs as he lifts. Hajime counts to three, and then Tooru’s in his arms, tightening his hold around Hajime’s shoulders as his weight settles and his knee shifts, with a strength that Hajime’s come to expect from his friend.

Before he can think too much about just how far he has to carry Tooru, Hajime makes for the gym door, turning sideways to get through the exit with minimal risk to Tooru’s head and limbs, and setting a brisk pace for the parking lot.

His car’s still idling there, at the closest possible spot to the gym, the passenger door open in anticipation of this moment. Hajime lets Tooru’s legs slide slowly out of his grasp, settling Tooru’s left foot on the pavement before straightening himself.

Tooru balances on one leg, a hand grasping the open door frame for support, before he looks at Hajime.

“Can you get my bag and lock up the gym?” he asks softly, and Hajime has half a mind to scream no at him, that he needs to get Tooru to the hospital _yesterday_ , that the damn gym equipment can rot in place for all he cares.

But Tooru’s the team captain—the responsibility has always weighed heavily on him—and he’d never let it go if Hajime didn’t say yes.

Hajime asks, “Can you get in the car by yourself?” and when Tooru nods, then Hajime does too. He turns and sprints back to the gym, tossing loose volleyballs rapid-fire into the ball cart and grabbing Tooru’s gear before heading to the locker room to fetch the rest of Tooru’s things.

He makes short work of it, leaving the net up for morning practice and flicking off the lights before he turns the key in the lock to secure the building. When he gets back to the car, Tooru’s seated in the front seat, the seat pushed back as far as the mechanism will allow for Tooru’s unbending knee. Tooru’s head is laid back against the headrest, and his eyes are closed. His face is drawn, skin pale and tight over his features, his tension worn plain for anyone to see.

Hajime doesn’t like it.

“You doing okay?” he asks as he climbs in the driver’s seat and puts the car in drive.

“I called Mom and told her we were coming. She’s still on shift until 11, but she’ll meet us at the ER entrance,” Tooru says, dodging Hajime’s question. Even his voice sounds taut, fragile.

“Alright. I’ll get you there,” Hajime says. “Are you buckled?”

Tooru gives a tight nod, and Hajime pulls away from the curb.

He doesn’t speed near as much on the way to the hospital as he did on the way to the school. His cargo is too precious to risk.

 

***

 

Tooru’s mom is waiting for them at the ER entrance, as she promised. Hajime pulls up under the porte-cochere, and she races around the car to help Tooru into a wheelchair. He doesn’t argue as his mother settles him in it and pushes him into the building.

It makes Hajime’s stomach roil uncomfortably to see Tooru so broken.

By the time Hajime has parked his car and entered the waiting area, Tooru’s nowhere to be seen. Figuring that his mother has whisked him off behind a curtain to see a doctor, Hajime falls unceremoniously into a chair to wait. It’s a quiet night in the ER, and the waiting room is practically empty, the silence of it settling over his shoulders like a heavy blanket.

The adrenaline flows out of him as quickly as water swirling down a drain, and he slumps there, his elbow on the armrest and his head propped up on his hand, his eyes closing tiredly.

As weary as he suddenly is, he waits, unable to doze, for Tooru’s mother to come fetch him. He waits, thinking about what he’s going to say to Tooru when he sees him.

When she does, an indefinite time later, her mouth is a tight line across her face. She touches him gently on the shoulder to get his attention, and when he lifts his head from his hand and looks at her, he knows that Tooru’s okay. If he wasn’t, there would be a lot more worry occupying her features, and a lot less anger.

Hajime gauges her expression again as he walks with her to the curtained off exam space in the back corner of the ER. Maybe it’s not actually _anger_ , per say, but it’s definitely disappointment. Tooru’s really in for it, Hajime decides.

She pulls the curtain back enough to reveal Tooru laying on a hospital bed, the foot of it elevated to keep his knee above his heart. He’s dressed only in a hospital gown, his clothes discarded in a messy pile on the only chair in the partitioned space. Tooru’s head is tipped back against a thin pillow, and he’s staring, unseeing, at the ceiling.

“Hajime, I have to go finish up my charts for the night and get my things before we can go home. Will you stay with him until I get back?” Tooru’s mom asks. “It’ll only be half an hour or so. I’ll try to make it less.”

Hajime opens his mouth to reply, but his voice comes out hoarse. “Sure,” he says gruffly. He frowns. He sounds angrier than he is, and he doesn’t like it.

He realizes that the frown he’s just put on his face doesn’t help this either, and he tries to exchange it for something more neutral.

“Thanks,” she replies, letting go of the curtain and disappearing behind the swinging sheath of fabric.

Hajime watches as the curtain stills. It’s not much privacy, he realizes, but it’ll have to be enough.

“Hey,” he starts, looking at Tooru.

Tooru blinks at the ceiling, ignoring him, not willfully, but in a detached sort of way. Hajime wonders if they gave him pain meds.

He sighs, and moves to the chair next to the bed. Stooping slightly, he scoops up Tooru’s clothes and begins folding them into a neat stack on the far side of the bed, near Tooru’s waist. Then he scoots the chair closer to the bed, and sits down.

Tooru doesn’t respond to any of Hajime’s actions, so Hajime reaches for Tooru’s hand, sliding his own into it as he tries again. “Hey,” he says, softly, and this time, Tooru’s head lolls to the side so he can look at Hajime.

Tooru’s eyes are glassy, not with drugs, but with emotions that he doesn’t know quite what to do with. Hajime can see the storm swirling there in the soft chocolate of Tooru’s eyes, and so he starts to chip away at Tooru’s pain.

“How’d it happen?” he asks gently.

“I was tired. Was gonna stop after one more serve. My jump felt off and I landed wrong. It twisted as it took my weight, and it just...popped.”

“Did they diagnose it?”

Tooru rolls his head back to its original position before whispering, “Yeah. They confirmed it with an MRI. It’s a torn meniscus. They won’t know if it’s bad enough to need surgery to fix it until it’s had a couple of weeks to start healing.”

Hajime nods, taking it in stride. He’s not surprised. It’s one of the most common knee injuries for athletes.

“That’s not too bad then. They heal pretty quickly.”

“I’m benched for the rest of the season, and on crutches until further notice. UCLA’s gonna revoke my scholarship offer.”

“You don’t know that. There’s plenty of time between now and next fall. You’ll be back to a hundred percent by then,” Hajime corrects.

Tooru sighs. “And if I need surgery?”

“Then you’ve got plenty of time between now and next fall, and you’ll get back to a hundred percent by then,” Hajime repeats patiently. “You’re a good enough player that they’re not going to give you up over something like this, Tooru. They wouldn’t have offered you a full scholarship so early in the year if they weren’t serious about you.”

“I guess.”

They fall quiet for a moment, and then Hajime asks the question that’s been burning inside him since he found Tooru on the gym floor.

“Why do you push yourself so hard?” he whispers, almost afraid of the answer he’ll get.

Tooru turns to meet his gaze once more, and bursts out into caustic laughter. “ _Why?_ ” he shrills. “Because I have to be good enough! I have to prove that I’m strong. I can’t disappoint Mom, or you—”

Tooru’s words are choked off as a sob rips through his whole body. Hajime can feel it where they’re still holding hands, how all of Tooru shakes with the force of it and the cries that follow, how Tooru’s body tries to curl away from Hajime to hide it.

Hajime doesn’t think about his response. He just releases Tooru’s hand and scoops under the brunette’s shoulders, folding Tooru into his chest and holding him there. Tooru’s hands come up and grip the back of Hajime’s shirt, pulling it against his throat, but Hajime hardly notices.

Tooru needs him, and that’s all that matters.

He lets Tooru sob against him, lets him wring it out of his system, and when it feels like he’s winding down, Hajime bends his head down and buries his face in Tooru’s hair.

“You could _never_ disappoint me,” Hajime whispers. And, honestly, he should have expected Tooru to fall apart again.

When Tooru finally calms, Hajime releases him, and he lays back onto the mattress, his face red and blotchy like every time Hajime’s seen him cry. Tear tracks stain his cheeks, and Hajime resists the urge to wipe them away, letting Tooru scrub away the evidence on his own.

Hajime settles back on his chair and deliberately takes Tooru’s hand once more.

Tooru looks at their joined hands, and then up a Hajime, his brown scrunching together in confusion.

Hajime ignores it, and says, “I’ve got a couple of things I need to say, okay? All I ask is that you hear me out.”

Tooru tenses a little bit, and Hajime can’t resist running his thumb across the back of Tooru’s hand to coax him away from whatever stress and worry is pulling at him. He clears his throat, and begins.

“You could _never_ disappoint me, Tooru. Did you know, we moved into the townhouse because we had to? I don’t know if I ever told you. Dad was laid off and couldn’t find another job, and Mom picked up a part-time job, but it wasn’t enough for us to keep our house, so we had to sell it and move.

“I hated it. I didn’t want to leave my friends, my school, my _home_. I’d never lived anywhere else, and suddenly we were downsizing from the big home I’d grown up in to this tiny townhouse, and I _hated_ it. I was _terrified_ of starting over someplace new, and I was so mad that day we moved in.”

Tooru chokes out a small laugh, and Hajime continues, smiling, “And then you were there, standing on the doorstep with that infernal cat of yours squiggling to get away, and you were so determined, so _sure_ that we were gonna get along. That we were gonna be friends.

“I tried to dislike you, you know? But you just got under my skin so fast. You plowed right through every wall I’d put up, and tore down every barrier I’d built. You ripped them down so fast that my head spun.

“You never gave me a chance to actually be unhappy in my new home. You dragged me everywhere with you, and how could I not follow along behind you? How could I not chase after you when you were having so much fun?”

Hajime pauses to breathe, and Tooru lets out a shaky breath. Hajime wonders if Tooru knows where this is going. He hardly knows himself, but he’s certain of where he _wants_ it to go. He inhales again, staring down at their joined hands, and pushes forward.

“Since the day we met 9 years ago, I’ve spent my whole life chasing after you,” Hajime’s voice wobbles just the tiniest bit, and he looks up and meets Tooru’s gaze. He sees the moisture gathering again in Tooru’s eyes, and feels his own eyes grow damp.

“I learned to play volleyball because you wanted to. I learned to like sci-fi movies because they’re your favorite. I learned to cook because you’re miserable at it. I even learned to like _cats_ because you have one. And I don’t regret _any_ of it,” Hajime laughs, and Tooru releases a low, breathy giggle of his own.

“You’ve been everything I needed for 9 years straight, without ever taking a day off, and your fear that you’ll disappoint me is so ridiculous in the face of that. The only way you could have ever disappointed me would be if you hadn’t introduced yourself and spouted out facts about monarchs like a walking encyclopedia the day we moved in, and then I never would have known what I was missing, to know that I should be disappointed. It’s a universal impossibility, you see?”

Tooru’s lips curve up in the most delicate of soft smiles, and seeing them twist into a happy shape brings Hajime’s focus back around to the second thing he wants— _needs_ —to say.

“I’ve been worrying a lot about college,” he says slowly. “About where I’m going to go. Because it dawned on me that, after all these years of having you right there by my side, I shouldn’t just be worried about you being on your own. I should be worried about _me_ being on my own, too. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized that I didn’t _want_ to be alone. I wouldn’t even know _how_ to be alone.

“You’ve been everything I need for the last 9 years,” Hajime repeats, “and I don’t want that to stop. I don’t want that to change. I don’t want to be away from you, even for a minute.”

There’s no going back now, so Hajime plunges forward feeling reckless and daring and scared as hell. “I love you. I’ve loved you since the day we met, even if I didn’t realize it then, and I don’t want to be 2,000 miles away from where you are, not _ever_ , and I _don’t care_ that it’s college and everything’s riding on it—”

Tooru pulls Hajime up out of his chair and toward him, and silences Hajime’s momentum with the press of his lips.

The suddenness of it shocks Hajime, and then as the kiss changes and continues, a different kind of shock runs through his body. He feels electrified from his head to his toes, like he’s burning up from the inside, and without really thinking about it, he deepens the kiss, begging for more.

He parts his lips to nibble at Tooru’s, and Tooru’s sudden gasp in response gives him the opening he’s hoping for. Hajime licks into his mouth, and Tooru exhales shakily through his nose, pulling Hajime closer. Hajime slides his arms around Tooru’s shoulders and tightens them, finding bare skin where the hospital gown is tied loosely. He runs his fingertips slowly down the ridges of Tooru’s spine, and Tooru shudders, breaking the kiss and panting, planting his forehead into Hajime’s shoulder.

Hajime holds him tight, savoring the feeling of Tooru in his arms for the sole purpose of being in his arms. “So. Was that an ‘I love you too,’ then? Because I didn’t even get to finish my confession,” Hajime smirks softly.

“Yes, you idiot,” Tooru whispers, locking eyes with Hajime. “I love you, too. Just as long and just as much.”

“Would you go out with me then?”

Tooru laughs, and lands a peck on Hajime’s lips. “Yeah,” he smiles.

Relief floods through Hajime, and he leans in to kiss Tooru again, nibbling and sucking on Tooru’s bottom lip like a man who’s been starved his whole life. Tooru happily feeds him, lacing his fingers together behind Hajime’s back, falling back into his pillow and pulling Hajime down on top of him as far as he can. Hajime’s hands trail down Tooru’s back, Tooru arching his spine gently as they trace his body, until they settle on Tooru’s hips with a little squeeze. Hajime’s thumbs settle into the divots there, between hip bone and abdomen, and they massage slow, little circles into Tooru’s skin as their mouths slid together.

Tooru gasps, pulling away carefully, and says, brokenly, “We should probably—”

“Yeah,” Hajime says straightening. He eyes Tooru’s kiss-swollen lips and wonders how he’s ever going to separate himself from them again.

Tooru squirms a little uncomfortably, causing Hajime to glance down at his knee, to see if it’s pillowed properly, and Hajime then realizes two things.

The first is that he somehow managed to keep skin contact with Tooru as he moved his hands down Tooru’s back around his hips, pulling the gown aside as he went. Blushing a bit, Hajime immediately tucks the gown back in around Tooru’s torso, and that’s when he notices the second thing, the cause of Tooru’s squirming.

He’s sporting a healthy erection, obvious through the thin layers of fabric of his underwear and the gown.

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry,” Hajime spits out, turning his whole body to face away in a flare of panic.

Tooru chuckles, embarrassed, and says, “It’s fine. Just...maybe help me get dressed?”

“Right,” Hajime says, his face burning. He grabs for Tooru’s clothes, and realizes they’re his workout clothes—a t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts—and they’re not going to be much help in hiding anything.

He pulls Tooru’s shorts over his feet, carefully past his knees, and lets Tooru lift his hips and settle the elastic there. Tooru reaches around behind his neck to untie the hospital gown, yanking it off once the strings have come free. Then he looks at Hajime and holds his hands straight up over his head.

Hajime tries not to ogle Tooru’s physique _too_ much, and laughs a little at the ridiculousness of their situation. Moments ago they were kissing like they were going to _un_ dress each other, and now he’s putting clothes _on_ a partially naked Tooru instead. Shaking his head minutely, he threads Tooru’s arms and head through the proper holes and tugs the shirt down past Tooru’s shoulders. When it’s settled where it should be, Hajime leans down and kisses Tooru chastely, once on the lips, and then once on his forehead.

Hajime moves to sit back down in the chair, but Tooru’s not having any of it. He activates his Secret Weapon, the Pout of Power sliding onto his features, and Hajime groans.

This is going to be his existence now, isn’t it?

He kisses Tooru once more, slotting their lips together and mussing up the pout, then pulls back just enough to whisper, “Your mom’ll be back soon.”

It’s Tooru’s turn to groan, and he says, “Yeah, okay.”

Hajime straightens and tugs his own sweatshirt off, tossing it casually across Tooru’s lap. Tooru rearranges it a little, and sends Hajime a grateful look.

“It’s a little cold outside, anyway,” Hajime says. “You should wear it once we get to the car.”

“What about you?” Tooru replies. “You’re not dressed much better.”

“I’m in jeans. You’re in sports shorts. You get the sweatshirt.”

A small smile creeps across Tooru’s face, and Hajime can’t help but mirror it.

 

***

 

Loading Tooru into the car is easier when Hajime doesn’t have to carry him to it. They wheel him out, situate him in the backseat with his right leg stretched across the seat, and Hajime drives the three of them home.

Helping Tooru into the house is harder.

Hajime waves off Tooru’s mom—the stairs are barely wide enough for two as it is, and Hajime’s stronger than she is. Hajime pulls Tooru’s right arm over his shoulder and they take it one step at a time. The trip down the hallway is just as excruciatingly slow and Tooru could probably (eventually) make it on his own, but Hajime doesn’t seem to mind taking it one step at a time. He sticks with Tooru the whole way, until they’ve reached his room.

Tooru’s not quite sure what he’s done to deserve this level of care, but he’s grateful for it.

Blushing slightly at the necessity of Hajime’s help, Tooru exchanges his workout clothes, now slightly stiff with dried sweat, for a pair of pajama pants and a fresh t-shirt, and then he lays down gingerly on his bed. Normally he’d shower after practice, especially one as strenuous as he’d put himself through tonight, but his knee hurts, and the low dose painkillers they gave him at the hospital aren’t going to be enough to keep him on his feet that long, so he gives up on it.

Tooru directs Hajime to the top shelf in his closet for blankets and pillows to prop his knee up with, and when Hajime turns around with an old pillow that Tooru hasn’t thought about in years in his hands and an incredulous look on his face, some of the pain bleeds out of Tooru’s consciousness and he smiles.

“What,” Hajime asks, “is _this_?”

“It’s a pillow shaped like a flying saucer? I got it from Mom when I was seven. No, eight? For Christmas.”

“Wrong,” Hajime says, striding over to Tooru’s side and carefully placing the flying saucer and another pillow under Tooru’s knee. “It’s definitely a plushie.”

“It is _not_ a plushie!” Tooru flushes indignantly, and Hajime just smirks and kisses Tooru on the forehead.

“It’s fine, Tooru,” Hajime whispers, bumping his forehead against Tooru’s gently. “It’s kinda cute that you have a flying saucer plushie.”

Tooru’s blush worsens, and he groans. “ _Ugh_. I’m tired. Go home before I throw this _pillow_ at you.”

Hajime laughs and stoops to pull the blankets over Tooru’s legs. He deposits them at Tooru’s waist, and leans in to kiss Tooru once more.

Their lips meet in a sweet caress, and it doesn’t last long—Tooru really _is_ tired—but it doesn’t have to. In the nine years that they’ve known each other, they’ve learned thousands of times over that they’ll have tomorrow, too.

“Night, Trashikawa,” Hajime says as he pulls the door partially closed behind him.

It’s good to know some things will always be the same, Tooru supposes.

He hears his mother exchange words with Hajime on the stairs, and then he catches the familiar rhythm of her footsteps coming down the hall.

She pauses at the door long enough to push it open with her knuckles when she knocks. Then she enters, a glass of milk in one hand and a plate with a sandwich and cut apple in the other.

“You need to have something in your stomach with those pain killers you took at the hospital, and I’m guessing you didn’t break from practice to eat dinner,” she says.

“You guess right,” Tooru answers guiltily. He props himself up so he can eat, and she hands him the plate first. He makes short work of the sandwich while she pulls his desk chair next to his bed and sits down.

“I heard Hajime. At the hospital,” she says when he finishes the sandwich picks up a piece of apple.

Tooru chews and swallows before he realizes what she’s talking about. Instantly, he turns a bright crimson.

“Mooom,” he complains, embarrassment overwhelming everything in him.

“I left before I heard _too_ much,” she smiles. “It wasn’t my place to listen.”

Somewhat mollified, Tooru reaches for another slice of apple.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know how you answered, though,” she laughs, and Tooru chokes slightly before swallowing the rest of his mouthful carefully and shooting his mother a _look_.

“Well?” she prods.

He abandons the rest of the apple as _dangerous_ , and blushing, he replies, “We’re dating.” The burning sensation remains in his cheeks, and he resigns himself to it.

“I suppose it’s time for the bees and the bees talk, then, isn’t it?”

Tooru whimpers, covering his face with his palm. Clearly, it is going to get _so much worse_.

“I’m serious, Tooru. If you don’t want to hear it from me, then find a reputable resource to learn from. And _no_ , I don’t mean porn. Porn is not realistic, no matter your orientation.”

Tooru shoots back upward, the plate resting on his abdomen sliding onto the mattress next to him, forgotten, as he hisses, “ _Mooom!_ ”

She keeps going, as if he hasn’t interrupted at all. “Be safe, _always_ , and be careful with each other’s bodies. Use lube. And condoms. Just because neither of you can get pregnant doesn’t mean condoms aren’t important.”

“You can stop _any_ time now,” Tooru says through gritted teeth, sinking back onto his bed, his face burning with embarrassment.

“And Tooru,” she says, catching his gaze and holding it. “You don’t have to take that step until you’re ready.”

When he doesn’t reply, she reaches out, strokes his cheek, and says, “You don’t _ever_ have to do anything you don’t want to do. Hajime will _always_ understand.”

Tooru turns to face her fully, flushed red and flustered, but silently appreciative of how much his mother cares, and says softly, “I know.” After a moment, he adds, “Thanks.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. Are you done with the apple? Here,” she says, trading the plate, and leftover apple slices, one of which she pops into her mouth, for the glass of milk. “Drink up, and then get some sleep. I’m keeping you home from school for a few days, but Hajime said he’ll bring your homework over tomorrow.”

Tooru wonders, as he drinks down the milk and hands the empty glass back to his mother, how long he’ll be able to feign napping before his mom and Hajime catch on and force him to do Calculus problems.

 

***

 

As Tooru lays in bed, trying to fall asleep ( _trying_ because his mom giving him _the sex talk_ at—he checks his phone—at 3 AM shocked all of the tiredness right out of him), he stares at the faintly glowing stars on his ceiling. They’re old and cracked, and peeling off in some places, but he’s kept them up because they remind him that the universe is a big place, and he’s just a tiny piece of it. Everyone is. It helps him remember that his insecurities are small in the grand scheme of things.

Not that he needs a lot of help remembering that, lately. Hajime—his _boyfriend_ —has a tendency to erase his insecurities completely.

When Tooru finally falls asleep, it’s with a smile on his lips.

 

***

 

Tooru wakes the next morning thickheaded and groggy. He’s not sure what time it is, and he doesn’t know what happened to his alarm. There’s too much sun streaming through his bedroom window, and it should make him nervous, but his body feels heavy, and he figures that, if he’s getting sick, sleeping in—maybe missing a day of school?—is probably a good idea.

He feels stiff so he rolls over, and a sharp gasp of pain escapes him, followed by a string of epithets that his mother would be scandalized by if she heard them from his lips.

Through the searing pain he remembers last night—how he injured his knee, how he’d ended up in the hospital, how he was benched for the rest of the season and his scholarship was at risk—and when the intensity of his agony passes, the epithets come again, this time fueled by anger instead of pain.

When he gathers himself again, he notices a bottle of painkillers and a glass of water on the closest edge of his nightstand. He props himself up, _carefully_ , and reaches for them, swallowing down three pills before putting the glass back on the nightstand. He slides the note in his mom’s handwriting out from under the glass before he sets it back down, and falls back into his pillows to read it.

_Tooru,_

_I left a peanut butter and banana sandwich on your nightstand. Make sure you eat it when you take your pain meds so your stomach isn’t empty._

_I’ll be home around 3:30. We’ll call your coach at UCLA together later this afternoon to let him know about your knee, okay? Wait for me. You don’t have to do it on your own._

_Rest until then. Hajime will drop by with your homework after practice._

_I love you.  
_ _Mom_

Tooru crumples the paper into tight ball of frustration, and flings it across the room towards his trash can. The last thing he wants is to come clean to his coach with his mother present. He can make a phone call by himself just fine. He doesn’t need anyone to hold his hand through it.

It takes Tooru five minutes of hissing and slow-motion maneuvering to sit up with his feet on the ground, and he curses himself for not waiting for the meds to kick in, but he’s antsy. He needs to get this done, to get it off his chest, and laying there in bed, doing nothing, is practically unbearable.

He eats the sandwich his mom left while he waits for his knee to _simmer the hell down_ , and when he feels like he can handle it again, he stands tentatively, all his weight on his left leg, and steadies himself with his crutches.

He crosses the room, his cell phone held between his lips, and perches gently on his desk chair. He toggles the button to turn his computer on, and opens his email when it’s booted. He searches for his coach’s email address, pulls up the most recent thread, and types the phone number in his coach’s email signature into his phone.

It rings three and a half times before a gruff voice cuts in with a terse, “‘Lo?”

“Coach Irihata? This is Tooru Oikawa, from—”

“I know where you’re from, kid. What do you need?”

“I just—” Tooru chokes on the news he has to share before forcing himself to take a deep breath and start over. “I have to be honest with you, sir. I...was injured last night.”

A tense silence follows Tooru’s words, and he only realizes that he’s digging his fingernails into his left thigh when the sting of broken skin temporarily overrides the ever-present pulsing in his right knee.

“Injured how?” Coach asks, and Tooru exhales shakily.

“Torn meniscus in my right knee.”

“Surgery?” Coach grunts into the phone, and Tooru winces.

“Not necessary as of right now. They confirmed the tear with an MRI, and they’re gonna give it a week or two to see if it heals on its own.”

Another silence looms over their conversation, and then Coach Irihata asks, “How’d it happen?”

“I—” Tooru’s words catch in his throat. He knows that it’s one hundred percent his fault, that he should have quit for the night sooner, that he shouldn’t have pushed himself so hard, but he can’t deny the burning need to be _better_ than he is, and what’s done is done. “I pushed too hard practicing. I overworked myself—got tired—and…and landed wrong coming out of a jump serve.”

He holds his breath while he waits for Irihata’s judgement, but it surprisingly doesn’t take long.

Coach sighs. “That was a dumb move, kid.”

“I know, sir. And I’m sorry. I just want to be good enough for—”

A laugh burst through the receiver, and Tooru pulls his phone away from his face in surprise, then jams it back against his ear when he hears Irihata’s voice trickle through the speaker. “Kid, you’re already good enough, or I wouldn’t have flown all the way to the Midwest to watch you play. And you’ll get better under my direction next year. You don’t have to worry so much.”

Tooru starts to breathe a bit easier with these words. Irihata talking like he’s going to keep Tooru on the roster relieves Tooru of the stress warping his gut into twisted knots.

“That said,” Irihata continues, “I can’t just let this go. Players that don’t know when to quit, that don’t know that resting their bodies can be more important than another hour of practice, are a liability. If you’re going to overwork yourself to the point of injury, I’m going to have to babysit you, and I don’t have time for that.”

The tightness returns to Tooru’s chest, and he moves his hand to his desk to keep from clawing further into his leg.

“Our athletic department doc is gonna want to see the MRI scans. And you’re going to check in with me weekly with progress updates. And you’re not going to do this again. When your coach wraps up practice, you’re _done_ for the night, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir. I’m...I’m benched for the rest of the season anyway, sir.”

“I know better than to think that’s going to stop you after what you’ve told me today,” Coach replies, sounding unamused.

“Right,” Tooru says weakly. “Do I, um...do I still have a scholarship, sir?”

“For now,” Irihata allows. “But I need you to prove to me that you can take care of yourself while polishing your skills. If this happens again, we’re going to have a different sort of conversation.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure to do better,” Tooru promises, a hint of desperation lacing his tone. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not. Now get some rest. We’ll talk again in a week.”

“Okay. Thanks, Coach.”

Irihata grunts and ends the call, and Tooru wilts onto his desk, resting his head on his arms as he breathes through the panic and self-loathing and regret that crashes through him. He shakes with the force of it. It doesn’t matter that Coach Irihata was beyond reasonable in his response; Tooru can’t stand to think about how _he put himself_ in this position, how he’d go back and change it all if he could, how he’d wipe it away and replace it with something better, or at least fix things so his scholarship isn’t riding on this one mistake, but it’s the only thought in his head and it won’t leave him alone.

Because he’s got to change everything. He’s got to quit when Coach says practice is over. He’s got to be satisfied with the status quo. He’s got to rewrite who he is to control his future, to shape it into—

 _…rewrite_.

Tooru freezes.

A terrible idea lodges itself in his brain, and Tooru groans around it, wishing that it hadn’t occurred to him, because now that it _has..._ well. Why wouldn’t he—

No.

The pen is _dangerous_. His scholarship isn’t exactly on the line yet, he can behave himself—

But it would be so much _easier_ to just write away his injury. Heal it fast and clean, keep the scholarship without any further risk, and keep working to be better than he is. No mess, no fuss. It’s perfect.

And yet.

What price would there be for healing an injury quicker than normal? For locking in his scholarship this way? When he’d used the pen before, there’d always been a price. Well. Except for when he’d written Hajime into his life, but—

What if this injury _is_ the price for Hajime’s arrival? What would happen if he tried to write it away? What if _Hajime_ pays the price then?

He won’t allow that. He _won’t_. If this injury is the price he’s paying for having Hajime in his life, he’ll pay it a thousand times over.

Whatever it takes to keep Hajime safe and by his side, Tooru will gladly do it.

He jerks the pencil drawer of his desk open and digs frantically behind all of the junk shoved in there over the years, fingertips scrambling until he finds it. He pulls the pen out of the drawer, glares at it—he’s _so_ done with this temptation—and firmly grasps both ends of the pen. He bends it until it snaps.

The _crack_ echoes through his room, finality molded into soundwaves, and Tooru experiences an instantaneous panic attack, suddenly terrified that breaking the pen means breaking its influence on their world and things going back to the way they were.

He launches himself up on the chair, scrambling to balance himself on his crutches and still move at the speed that his anxiety demands, rushing down the hallway only half as quickly as he wants, calling Kuro’s name as he goes.

Tooru finds the black beast curled up on his mom’s bed, sparing him a painfully slow trip down the stairs, and the cat gives him the most unappreciative glare for the rude awakening, but Tooru can’t care less how put out Kuro feels.

He’s still _here_ , which means _Hajime_ is still here, and relief swells through Tooru with all the force of a tidal wave. He crashes next to Kuro, gathering the protesting cat up in his arms and hugging the irritability out of him, tucking his face into Kuro’s side and squeezing the cat with a gentle firmness that belies his own racing heart.

It takes him some time to calm back down and sort himself out.

When he does, all he wants to do is wash away the dried sweat from practice the night before, and the tension and disquiet of the morning. He makes his way slowly to the bathroom and eyes the shower. He grimaces at the idea of water pelting his knee, but he feels disgusting, so Tooru strips his clothes off piece by piece, sits on the edge of the tub, and turns the water on, stoppering the drain and adjusting the temperature. He squeezes an extraneous amount of his mom’s favorite bubble bath into the running water, and waits. When the tub is three-quarters full, he turns off the tap, and swivels around to lower his legs, and then the rest of his body, into the water.

It’s hot, almost uncomfortably so, but Tooru knows the heat will pull the anxiety from his muscles and the tightness from his chest.

As he soaks, he thinks back to all the times that Hajime tried to pull him away from his self-imposed practice, all the times that Takahiro and Issei frowned when he told them he was going to get in a few more serves before he left. All the times Hajime came back, unprompted, to pick Tooru up from school and drag him back home for a late dinner and sleep.

He vows to do better. He’s not going to give any of them cause to worry like that again. He’s not alone, and he’s going to let that knowledge shape his future.

He reaches for his bath sponge, scoops up a handful of bubbles, and starts scrubbing away his mistakes.

 

***

 

Hajime pauses to knock on Tooru’s front door before entering, but not by much. There’s a cutting wind tonight that he’s eager to escape, and he's missed Tooru all day, like a person possessed. So much so that he’s actually looking forward to explaining the Calculus homework to Tooru—a concept so foreign that he wonders if he’s really in his right mind.

He slips his shoes off, sheds his coat, and peers into the living room. Sure enough, Tooru is there, stretched out on the couch under a blanket and a cat, his knee properly elevated, Star Trek reruns playing quietly on the TV.

Tooru’s mom is puttering in the kitchen, presumably cleaning up after dinner, but Tooru’s eyes are closed despite the noise, his lips parted slightly in the softness of sleep. Hajime crosses to the couch, gently lowering his backpack to the floor, and waves at Tooru’s mom.

She wipes her hands on a towel, and walks to Hajime’s side. “Hi, Hajime,” she smiles. “How was your day?”

“Long,” he says honestly, smiling back.

A quiet, tinkling laugh escapes her, and her smile turns a little more knowing, closing in on becoming a smirk but not quite crossing the line. The kindness in it keeps it soft. “Wake him up and make him do a little work, okay? Oh, and there’s pork chops left over in the fridge, if you want. I’m gonna go upstairs and put on a movie, but if you need anything, just holler.”

“Okay,” he nods, his eyes already sliding back to Tooru. “Thanks.”

“Have a good night, Hajime.”

“You, too.”

He settles himself on the floor next to Tooru’s head as the stairs creak with her retreat, and he pulls out his Calculus textbook and notes, setting them on the coffee table next to him. Once he hears the bedroom door upstairs close, he leans in and presses his lips lightly to Tooru’s. The brunette shifts in his sleep, slow to wake, so Hajime kisses him again, the corners of his mouth curving up when he feels a smile form on Tooru’s lips.

He opens his eyes as Tooru does, slowly, with a lazy air of contentment that Hajime soaks up. “Hi,” he whispers.

“This is the best way to wake up,” Tooru mumbles sleepily, blinking away his nap.

“I’ll remember that,” Hajime says.

Tooru stretches his arms out, wrapping them around Hajime’s shoulders and nuzzling into the curve of his boyfriend’s neck as a yawn escapes him. “You’re about to ruin it with math, aren’t you?”

Hajime laughs. “The faster we get it over with, the faster we can get back to kissing?” he suggests.

Tooru groans, detaching himself from Hajime and sitting up slowly. “That is alarmingly persuasive.”

 

***

 

When Tooru finally returns to school, none of their classmates are surprised to see Hajime shouldering Tooru’s backpack as he crutches around between classes. None of their teammates are surprised to see Hajime getting a folding chair for Tooru to set from during practice—because let’s be real, he isn’t going to sit out _entirely_. And neither of their friends are surprised to see Hajime holding hands with Tooru in the backseat of the car on the way home, Tooru’s right leg stretched comfortably across Hajime’s lap. 

Takahiro and Issei simply fist bump each other like the credit for Tooru and Hajime finally getting together belongs to them, and let it go without comment.

 

***

 

“ _Tooru!_ ” Hajime bellows, waving an arm to get Tooru’s attention, and Tooru releases the trigger of the leaf blower, letting the engine die to a quieter roar.

“What?” he asks over the noise, pulling an earplug out of his left ear.

“Watch where you’re aiming that thing. You’re blowing my leaf pile all over the place. Maybe point it down at the driveway a bit more, okay?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Tooru says. He wiggles the earplug back into his ear, gives Hajime a thumbs up, and swivels around on his crutch to blow the leaves another direction. Hajime just rolls his eyes and goes back to his raking.

Forty minutes later, the sidewalks and driveway long since cleared, Tooru sits watching Hajime pull the last of the leaves into the monstrous pile they’ve collected. Working together to rake the lawn is an old tradition—well, okay, their parents would threaten to ban video games until the chore was done, so Tooru and Hajime begrudgingly accepted their fate and _made_ it a tradition—but the completion of the work isn’t the end of their ritual.

Hajime stands with one hand holding the rake upright and the other wiping his brow, as Tooru pulls himself up with his crutch from his place sitting on the front step, and makes his way over to the leaf pile.

“No,” Hajime says, holding a hand out to stop Tooru. “Your knee is still injured. Absolutely not.”

Tooru just grins, walks past Hajime, tosses his crutch to the side, and turns, falling backwards into the leaves. He flops spectacularly, completely cushioned from the impact by the thickness of the pile. He squirms around a bit, sinking into the leaves, their crinkling and rustling loud next to his ears, then he holds up a hand toward Hajime.

“Come on in, Haji. Water’s warm.”

Hajime rolls his eyes at Tooru exasperatedly, then takes his hand as he lowers himself into the leaves, laying back beside Tooru. He laces their fingers together, and Tooru smiles up at the sky through the barren branches of the tree above them.

He’s going to miss this next year, when they’re both away at college.

“Do you think palm trees lose their leaves?” Tooru asks suddenly, his smile faltering, and Hajime rolls onto his side to look at Tooru. He settles his weight on his elbow, and meets his boyfriend’s serious gaze.

“Nah,” he says, picking aimlessly at a bit of leaf debris in Tooru’s hair. “It doesn’t get cold enough for them to need to.”

“Then how am I going to rake with you next year?” Tooru asks. “If there aren’t any leaves on the ground in LA for me to rake.”

Hajime hums in consideration, then says, “What if neither of us rakes?”

“What?” Tooru asks, confused.

“I’m thinking about not going to IIT,” Hajime says, and Tooru is stunned. The Illinois Institute of Technology has been Hajime’s dream for a long time now, even before he knew exactly what field he wanted to study.

“Wait— Why—why would you say that?” Tooru splutters, sitting upright and scooting backwards in the leaves so he can focus on what Hajime’s saying. He meets Hajime’s eyes, and finds a hint of uncertainty swirling there.

“When you were in the ER,” Hajime says, gesturing at Tooru’s knee, “I told you that I don’t want to be 2,000 miles away from you. That hasn’t changed.” He picks up a leaf from the pile and begins picking it apart absentmindedly as he speaks. “If anything, I want that even less than I did before. So, I started looking for schools with good Architectural Engineering programs out west.”

If Tooru was shocked before, now he’s struck completely speechless.

“Even if we weren’t dating,” Hajime continues, “Even if we were just friends and that’s all either of us ever wanted...” He shrugs, and clears his throat. “I don’t know how I’d survive without your annoying ass interrupting me daily.”

Tooru bursts out in laughter, throwing his head back with the force of his amusement. “Super romantic, Haji.”

Hajime lips twitch into a small grin in acknowledgment, and he idly picks up another leaf to dismantle. “But seriously, I’ve been looking at USC, and—”

“ _USC?_ ” Tooru repeats. “As in, the University of Southern California? _In LA?!_ ”

“Yeah...is that okay?”

Heedless of everything but his need to embrace Hajime _right now_ , Tooru flings himself at his boyfriend and kisses him silly.

They fall back into the leaves together, Hajime grinning despite being pinned under Tooru’s weight, their arms holding each other tightly as their kisses slow from something excitement-fueled and energetic into something more enduring and sweet.

When they finally surface for air, still happily wrapped around each other, Tooru has to check just once more. “You’ve always wanted to go to IIT, though. Are you sure about this?”

Hajime smiles gently at Tooru, one corner of his lips quirking up in an asymmetrical way that’s always made Tooru’s heart work a little harder than it should, and he says, “I found something I want more.”

In that moment, Tooru feels incredibly lucky that Hajime thinks he’s good enough to love.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: the surprise epilogue that no one anticipated, featuring nerdy Tooru, put-upon Hajime, adorable boyfriends, and smut.
> 
> As always, kudos & comments are treasured. Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callie_ks) if you ever want to scream about volleydorks (or kpop, because let's be honest, BTS owns my soul).
> 
> I love you all. <3


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tooru yanks his hand out of Hajime’s and crosses his arms over his chest, turning to pout at the window. Hajime’s smile slides into a laugh, and he reaches for Tooru’s hand again. He doesn’t meet any resistance from Tooru when he pulls his boyfriend’s arms loose and weaves their fingers together again, lifting the back of Tooru’s hand to his lips before settling it on his thigh once more. They’ve had this mock argument a hundred times, and the familiarity of it is reassuring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It it heeeeeere!! The epilogue we've all been dying for...
> 
> I'm so, so sorry it took me so long to crank this out--one of the scenes *ahem, an _important_ one* was giving me trouble, and I refuse to give you all anything but my best work. Please forgive the delay!
> 
> You'll note that the rating went up--this is because I have sinned. I have sinned so, so much. If you're not into smut but still want to enjoy the fluff in this chapter (yay, fluff!), then quit when you get to "It’s good to be home again." Everything after that is...well. You get the picture.
> 
> This chapter is unbeta'd, mainly because this fic is a gift for my beta, Kiki, and I _really_ wanted the contents of this chapter to be a surprise for her. So any mistakes are my own.  <3

 

“Tooru, I swear to God, if you don’t pull your feet back inside the window _right now_ , I’m gonna pull this car over and we’re not going to move another inch until you do.”

Tooru groans, uncrosses his ankles from their perch on the rear-view mirror, and slowly reels his limbs back inside the vehicle, shifting his weight awkwardly in his seat as he does so. “Haji, you’re no _fun_. I just needed to stretch a little bit!”

“What _is_ it with you and putting parts of your body _outside a moving vehicle_?” Hajime asks gruffly.

“I’m just too tall to be cooped up in this tiny car! You can’t blame me—we’ve been on the road for _ever_.”

“Tooru, we’ve only got six hours left before we’re home. Can you please behave until then?” Hajime sighs.

“Haji~” Tooru whines, “Please? I just need to _stretch_...”

Hajime glances sideways at the GPS on his phone, clipped to the dashboard. “Fine. It’s only another hour to Des Moines. We’ll stop for dinner there.”

Tooru emits a whine, and props his feet up on the dash. “We can’t stop sooner?”

“Well, there’s nothing but farmland in between here and there, so unless you plan on eating field corn—”

Tooru interrupts with a gasp. “Haji! We should look for crop circles! I’ll bet there are some really good ones around here!”

In reply, Hajime reaches for the automatic locks, triggering a car-wide lock down. Tooru responds with his signature pout, and, in a fit of self-preservation, Hajime keeps his eyes steadily on the road ahead of them.

Safety first, and all that.

 

***

 

After their half-hour break in Des Moines to stretch and grab food, Tooru’s quiet. Hajime enjoys the silence for a while, until he realizes that Tooru’s _thinking_.

He knows that when Tooru thinks, it usually turns into overthinking, so he reaches over and snags Tooru’s left hand with his right, lacing their fingers together and pulling the other boy’s arm towards him until he can rest their joined hands on his leg.

It’s as good as asking Tooru if he’s okay, and he responds to Hajime’s gesture with a soft smile, slouching back into his seat and rolling his head to look at Hajime.

“Do you think it’ll be weird being at home again?”

Hajime takes the question seriously, but it doesn’t take him any time at all to produce an answer.

“Absolutely.”

Tooru hums his exhale, a vocal sigh that Hajime knows means that Tooru’s not finished with this train of thought.

“Good-weird or bad-weird?” Tooru asks, and Hajime frowns.

He takes a moment to consider, flicking his blinker on and passing a tractor trudging along the interstate at 40 miles per hour.

“Good-weird, I guess? It’ll be nice to spend time with our parents again, and Hiro and Issei—we should call them and set up a 2-on-2 game or something. And it’ll be really nice to not have the weight of schoolwork hanging over us. But it’ll be strange going back to our parents’ rules when we’ve been living by our own for so long.”

“Yeah,” Tooru agrees. “I’m gonna miss waking up to you drooling on my shoulder.”

Hajime snorts. “I’m _not_ going to miss your snoring.”

“Okay, seriously, I do _not_ snore!” Tooru squabbles, acting as affronted as ever.

Hajime grins. “If you say so, babe.”

Tooru yanks his hand out of Hajime’s and crosses his arms over his chest, turning to pout at the window. Hajime’s smile slides into a laugh, and he reaches for Tooru’s hand again. He doesn’t meet any resistance from Tooru when he pulls his boyfriend’s arms loose and weaves their fingers together again, lifting the back of Tooru’s hand to his lips before settling it on his thigh once more.

They’ve had this mock argument a hundred times, and the familiarity of it is reassuring. They fall into it again easily, taking comfort in the routine of the words and gestures as they speed home towards change.

Whatever changes are in store for them, however, they’ll face them together. They’ve gotten good at that in the last year.

 

***

 

It’s late when Hajime pulls into the driveway, the sun long-since sunken below the horizon, but both his parents and Tooru’s mom are still awake and waiting for them to arrive. Hajime finds this amusing, because Tooru’s been snoring on and off for the last two hours of the drive, succumbing to the monotonous rhythm of tires on pavement, his head leaning back against the headrest and his mouth hanging open. If he hadn’t been so damn cute about it, Hajime might have woken him to up to help navigate through traffic as they got closer to home, but it’s almost 11 o’clock, and they aren’t getting anywhere near downtown Chicago where the traffic _actually_ is, so Hajime let him sleep.

Their parents surround the car as soon as Hajime turns off the ignition, eager to welcome the boys home after their first year of college, and Tooru’s mom snorts in amusement when she realizes her son is snoring lightly, muttering a soft ‘ _and he says he doesn’t snore_.’ She wakes him up with a gentle patting on the cheek, and when he’s conscious enough to realize that he’s home, he flings his arms around her, seatbelt still buckled, and grins.

Hajime makes a more dignified exit from the car, and hugs his mom, then his dad, before turning to the backseat door to grab his and Tooru’s overnight bags. He figures he and Tooru can empty the nonessential stuff from the car tomorrow, when there’s daylight and he’s had a full night’s sleep to wash away the weariness of the road.

He glances back at Tooru, who’s managed to finally extract himself from the car, and catches him pulling one more bag from the backseat, a tote packed full enough that the zipper across the top barely closes.

“You got someplace special you need to be yet tonight?” Hajime smirks, recognizing the bag as the one Tooru uses to haul around his assortment of 1001 beauty products. Tooru’s mother swallows a laugh as she greets Hajime with a hug.

Tooru sniffs. “I can’t leave my bath scrub and hair gel in the car overnight, Haji. I don’t leave the house unprepared,” he says, miffed, as he comes around the car to hug Hajime’s parents hello.

Hajime just snorts. “Right. _Unprepared_. Because all that primping in front of the mirror in the morning is required to be able to function throughout the day.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Tooru replies smoothly, and Hajime just rolls his eyes.

“You realize,” he says, “that the first thing we’re doing tomorrow is emptying our dorm rooms out of my car. That doesn’t take any _preparing_ , Tooru. In fact, it’s just going to ruin all your hard work, because I’m not doing all the lifting and carrying.”

Tooru rolls his eyes, and drapes his free arm around Hajime’s shoulder. “That’s tomorrow’s problem, Haji.”

Hajime closes his eyes and suffers quietly for a moment, and when he opens them again, it’s to see their parents grinning at him and Tooru.

“It’s good to see that nothing’s changed,” Hajime’s mother says, and Tooru snorts.

“Oh, things have changed all right. Now, if I whine enough—”

“Tooru,” Hajime interrupts sweetly, wrapping his arm around Tooru’s waist and pinching his side, “No one actually wants to hear the end of that sentence.”

“He’s really right,” Hajime’s father agrees.

“I was just gonna say that you pay for dinner!” Tooru pouts.

Tooru’s mom chuckles. “Alright, inside, you two. Speaking of food, are you hungry? I made a pot roast and it’s still warm—”

“ _Seriously?_ ” Tooru’s jaw drops. “You are the best mother and I missed you _so much_.”

“Miss real food, did you?” Hajime’s dad snickers. “Didn’t Hajime ever cook for you?”

“Hey, I cooked whenever we saw each other,” Hajime protests. “I can’t be held responsible for the astronomically stupid amount of instant ramen and pizza he consumed when I wasn’t around.”

“But, Haji~” Tooru starts, and Hajime groans. “You didn’t make enough leftovers to last through the week! It’s not _my_ fault I had to resort to that terrible food to survive~”

Tooru’s mother bursts out laughing, taking Tooru’s overnight bag from Hajime and steering her son toward the sliding door into their kitchen. “Okay, okay. We get it, drama queen. Hajime, why don’t you take your bag up to your room, and then you should all come over. There’s cake—”

“ _Yes_ ,” Tooru interjects.

“—but I’m not letting Tooru have any _terrible food_ until after you’ve both eaten a proper meal,” she finishes smugly.

“Why does Haji have to eat a proper meal before _I_ can have cake?” Tooru squawks as his mother pushes him in front of her into their kitchen, and Hajime smiles.

It’s good to be home.

His parents are still standing with him on the patio outside their own kitchen, and the way they’re smiling fondly at him tells him they’re thinking the same thing. He wraps his arms around them again, pulling them both into a giant hug, and says, “Hi.”

His mother envelopes his ribcage and laughs, a rich, warm sound that he’s missed over the last four months—phone calls and video chats don’t do it justice, leaving her amusement sounding thin and tinny in comparison with the real thing—and he soaks it up.

“Welcome home, son,” his father chimes in. He pulls away first, and takes Hajime’s bag from him.

“Dad, I can get that,” Hajime protests, but his father just waves him off.

“Like I’m going to make you carry it inside and get scolded for breaking that hug,” he grumbles good-naturedly. “I’m not dumb enough to get in the way of a reunion between mother and son. You’re all she’s talked about this whole week.”

He disappears into their home, and Hajime looks down at his mother, who’s still standing at his side, her arms loosened around him as she watches her husband go, a wide smile on her face.

“I missed you, too,” Hajime says, amused, his arm settling around her shoulders.

“How were your finals?” she asks as they wait for his father’s return. “I was dying to call and ask, but I didn’t want to interrupt you studying for the ones you had later in the week, and then you and Tooru were trying to get everything packed up before the dorms closed, and then you were on the road…”

“They went good, I think. Studying was stressful, and the last three hours before I had to turn my lit paper in were tense—my laptop crashed and I lost an hour’s worth of work when I finally got it to reboot.”

Her brows knit when she hears this, and Hajime shrugs it away. “I remembered most of what I’d written, so I wrote it again. It was frustrating, but it worked out. I turned in my paper on time.”

She hums sympathetically. “When do you get your grades back?”

“In a week or so. The professors have until Friday next week to calculate everything and turn in a final grade, and then I’ll get an email with a link to view my updated transcript.”

His father reemerges from their home, and his mother squeezes a bit around his waist before she lets go, moving towards the Oikawas’ kitchen. She says, “I’m sure you did well. You worked very hard.”

Hajime laughs, walking along behind her with his father. “College is too expensive not to work hard,” he chuckles.

His father eyes him sideways as they step inside. “So, you didn’t have any fun at all, then?” he asks, one eyebrow creeping up.

“Oh, I made sure he had fun,” Tooru says, and Hajime turns in time to see his boyfriend sitting at the kitchen table, elbow propped on the flat surface, his chin resting in one hand. He’s smirking dangerously, and Hajime’s can feel his face reddening at the onslaught of stories surely queuing up in Tooru’s head.

Definitely time to nip this in the bud.

“Tooru, don’t make your mother serve you. Just ‘cause you’re back home doesn’t mean that she’s here to wait on you,” Hajime chastises, and Tooru stands up, sticking his tongue out at Hajime.

Hajime shoos Tooru’s mom from the kitchen, grabs a pair of plates from the cupboard, and meets Tooru in front of the crockpot. Tooru hands him a pair of forks, and he levers a chunk of beef onto each of their plates, no small feat considering its so tender it’d fall apart even if all he did was look at it.

“Get a slotted spoon for the veggies, Tooru,” his mom says absently, settling an extra chair at the table so they could all be seated together.

Tooru hands a spoon to Hajime, then turns and grabs glasses from the cupboard. “Milk?”

“Yeah,” Hajime grunts, fishing chunks of potato and carrot and tomato and celery out of the crockpot. “How much do you want?”

Tooru glances up from the milk he’s pouring, scrunches up his nose, and says, “Another spoonful, then I’m good,” before screwing the cap back on the carton and sticking it back in the fridge.

Hajime obliges, then carries the two plates to the table, where their parents are already seated. Tooru sits down next to him, setting a glass of milk in front of him, and leans sideways to kiss his mom on the cheek.

“Thanks for the meal, Mom.”

“Yes, thanks so much for cooking. It smells amazing,” Hajime echoes, and they dive into their late-night dinner.

With the first bite, Tooru’s making superfluous (even if accurate) noises of enjoyment, and Hajime’s back to rolling his eyes at Tooru every couple of minutes, and their parents are smiling and laughing at their antics, and they fit back in like they’d never left.

It’s good to be home again.

 

***

 

It’s weird to be home again, but in ways Hajime doesn’t expect. Primary on that list is laying on his childhood bed, unable to sleep because the mattress is softer than the one in his dorm room was.

He doesn’t notice it their first night back at home; he’s too tired from long days of back-to-back driving. On their way _to_ their respective colleges in LA in August, they had taken a full week and a half to drive across the country, meandering through the Badlands and the Rockies, spending a memorable night in Vegas, and holing up in a romantically quaint bed-and-breakfast they’d stumbled across outside of Yosemite National Park. They’d taken their time with the drive, luxuriating in their first vacation alone together, and it had facilitated a necessary shift in their relationship, from boyfriends who had grown up together to boyfriends who _were_ grown-up together.

And the sex—well. That had been good, too.

On their way home at the end of the school year, however, they’d pushed straight through, taking turns behind the wheel and only stopping once to get a hotel room when neither of them was alert enough to drive safely anymore. It had been 29 hellishly long hours in the car and at the end of it, his belly full of pot roast and his heart full of friends and family, Hajime could have slept on a piece of plywood without noticing.

Now that he’s recovered from the trip, however, getting comfortable on his own bed seems like an impossible feat. He rolls over again, unsuccessfully trying to remember how long it took him to adjust to the dorm bed when he arrived at college. Huffing out a sigh, he settles on his stomach in hopes of finally drifting off sleep.

He’s shifting _again_ when he sees the little LED light on his phone flash. Curious—and it’s not like he’s going to fall asleep anytime soon, so why not check the notification—he picks up the device and drags his thumb across the lock screen.

 

 **From Trashikawa [00:54]  
** hey haji u awake

 **To Trashikawa [01:07]  
** why arent you asleep

 **From Trashikawa [01:07]**  
y arent u  
kuro is a shit  
i forogt how clingy he is at nite n im not use to it anymore  
hes crushng my hip

 **To Trashikawa [01:07]  
** so kick him out and close the door

 **From Trashikawa [01:08]**  
right  
then he jsut paws at he door n it ratles  
thats worse

 **To Trashikawa [01:08]  
** and texting me in the middle of the night makes this better how

 **From Trashikawa [01:09]**  
shut up  
u were awake alrady  
i kno u keep ur phone on silent at nite so u hadto look at ti to see my txt

 **To Trashikawa [01:09]  
** still doesnt answer my ?

 **From Trashikawa [01:09]**  
whatever  
dont be rude  
i just miss u

 **From Trashikawa [01:10]**  
u shoud come ovre here  
then i could sleep

 **To Trashikawa [01:10]**  
let me get this straight  
you texted me in the middle of the night  
because your cat is being clingy and you cant sleep with him all over you

 **To Trashikawa [01:11]**  
and your solution is for /me/ to come sleep with you instead  
in your twin bed  
that isnt big enough for you and a cat

 **From Trashikawa [01:11]**  
rude  
i didnt aks for ths dissrespect

 **To Trashikawa [01:12]  
** …

 **From Trashikawa [01:12]**  
ok whatever  
plan b  
meet me in the treehuose n bring ur pilliw

 **To Trashikawa [01:12]**  
really  
a sleepover in the treehouse  
what are we 12 again

 **From Trashikawa [01:19]**  
RUDE  
UGH YES  
WERE 12  
juts get ur ass out here im cold n u need to wrm me up

Hajime tries to smother a smile and fails as he pulls on sweatpants over his boxers and digs an old hoodie out of his dresser. He grabs his phone and his pillow and pauses at the linen closet on his way down the hallway to snag a couple of extra blankets.

He carefully skips the creaky fifth and eleventh steps, and pads quietly to the back door. He slips his shoes on without tying them, and slides the door open, making sure to grab his keys off the hook, just in case.

Light flickers inside the treehouse as Hajime climbs up the ladder one handed, and when he’s high enough that he can see in the door he’s a little stunned at what he finds.

There are lit candles everywhere along the walls of the treehouse, in all shapes and sizes, with rose petals scattered haphazardly beneath and around them. In the center of the treehouse, Tooru has zipped together and laid flat their sleeping bags. He’s already curled up inside, the edge of the sleeping bag pulled up to his chin against the chill of the night.

“Tooru…what is all this?” Hajime asks, pulling himself up the ladder the rest of the way as color rises on his cheeks.

Tooru has the decency to blush. “I wanted to celebrate our first year of college. We survived. I mean, we survived freshman year, but also, _we_ survived, you know?”

Hajime does know. They’d experienced their fair share of bumps in the road over the last nine months, including Tooru’s unfounded bout of jealousy over Hajime’s instant friendship with the setter on his college team and Hajime’s breakdown due to stress during his first finals week, not to mention the fact that their colleges were an hour apart by bus, making it hard to spend time together the way they were used to.

He was eternally grateful they managed to keep it together.

“Anyway,” Tooru says, “It’s cold, so you should get over here and warm me up.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Hajime’s brain finally processes the pile of clothes off to the side.

Tooru’s clothes. That are not currently on Tooru.

Heat pools in his stomach, sinking lower as he thinks about just what, exactly, is waiting for him inside the sleeping bag, and—well. Hajime decides that warming Tooru up sounds like a really _good_ idea.

He drops the extra blankets in the treehouse doorway, tosses his pillow next to Tooru’s, and strips his sweatpants and hoodie off, folding them up and dropping them next to Tooru’s clothes. He slips into the sleeping bag, and Tooru is snuggled up against him in an instant, leeching body heat off Hajime unashamedly.

Hajime chuckles and wraps an arm around Tooru’s bare torso, pulling his boyfriend up and on top of him. Tooru helps, swinging his leg over Hajime’s to straddle him and laying on Hajime’s chest. He brackets Hajime’s head with his forearms, and leans in for a kiss.

It starts off chaste, all lips and softness, but Tooru doesn’t let it stay that way for long. He sucks at Hajime’s lower lip, and Hajime opens up to him, licking into Tooru’s mouth and sliding their tongues together.

Hajime takes his time, savoring the way Tooru tastes cool and minty. His hands caress up and down Tooru’s back, soft touches that make Tooru melt into him. They fall into each other easily, comfortable in old habits and a long history together, and Hajime smiles into their kiss.

“Love you,” he mumbles into Tooru’s lips, and Tooru breaks the kiss to smile back.

“Love you, too,” Tooru whispers, tracing his lips up Hajime’s jaw and nibbling on his ear. “Now are you gonna gentle me to death, or are you gonna fuck me?”

Hajime groans as Tooru sucks on his earlobe. Sliding his hand down, over Tooru’s ass and squeezing a little before he moves on to the back of Tooru’s thighs, Hajime braces with his other arm and rolls them over so that Tooru’s on his back and Hajime hangs over him.

“Well, if those are my options, I’m definitely gonna fuck you,” he growls, and Tooru giggles.

“Good answer,” he says, grinding his hips up into Hajime’s.

The friction is a heavenly sort of hell, with only the cloth of their underwear separating their hardening cocks, too much and not enough all at once, and Hajime grinds down to meet Tooru’s hips again, pulling a sharp gasp from Tooru.

Hajime unwinds Tooru’s legs from where they’ve latched on around his waist, and retreats a little deeper into the sleeping bag, shimming down Tooru’s body. Tooru lifts his hips, shivering at the knowledge of what’s coming next, and Hajime pulls his boxer briefs down, baring Tooru completely. Shoving them to the side of the sleeping bag, he settles his fingertips lightly on the edge of Tooru’s naked hips, his touch fleeting enough to make Tooru’s breath hitch in his chest.

Hajime places an open mouth kiss on the V of Tooru’s hip, moving his lips wetly toward Tooru’s erection, breathing softly on the skin each time he pulls back from the kiss, only to place another a little lower. Tooru’s legs quiver, one of his hands clutching the sleeping bag beneath them, the other combing into Hajime’s hair.

Grinning, Hajime snakes his tongue out, touching it to the base of Tooru’s cock and dragging it upwards, mouthing small kisses up his length as he goes. It’s a torturously slow process, one that Hajime knows undoes Tooru completely, and he likes it when Tooru is undone, a mess beneath him, shaking, wanting more.

When he reaches the head of Tooru’s cock, he slides the flat of his tongue across the slit, and Tooru’s gasp is the best reward. He molds his lips around the head, massaging softly with his tongue, before sliding down. He takes a little at a time, working Tooru into it slowly, refamiliarizing himself with the texture and weight of Tooru in his mouth, inching past his gag reflex carefully, until he’s a breath away from taking Tooru all the way in.

Hajime pulls back up, slowly, before sinking down once more, burying his nose in Tooru’s groin and hollowing his cheeks to suck as he pulls up again. He falls into an easy rhythm, lulling Tooru, then shocking him back out of it as Hajime swallows around his cock. Tooru lets out a soft, breathy sob, and Hajime releases him to press open-mouthed kisses along his length, sucking softly as he does.

Breaking Tooru down and rendering him speechless this way has always been one of Hajime’s favorite things to do. He grins between soft kisses, breathing cool air along Tooru’s cock, and says, “You ready, babe?”

The sounds that come out of Tooru are a garbled mess, but it’s abundantly clear that his answer is _yes_ when the fingers that had curled in the fabric of the sleeping bag appear next to Hajime’s face with a bottle of lube.

Hajime bursts into laughter, his forehead dropping to Tooru’s hip. “Okay, okay, I’m on it,” Hajime says, nipping a little at Tooru’s hip as he raises himself up just enough to take the lube from his boyfriend. He pops the cap open and squeezes a generous glob onto his fingers, slicking them together to warm the gel.

Tooru lifts his legs, one at a time, to hook them over Hajime’s shoulders, and Hajime places another kiss on Tooru’s thigh. He traces a finger down the curve of Tooru’s ass, before circling his hole and pressing against it. Tooru tenses a moment, before relaxing and letting Hajime in, breathing out slowly as Hajime sinks his finger and carefully slides it deeper.

Hajime bends down enough to suck on Tooru’s cock as he works him open, matching the rhythm of his mouth with his hand, crooking his fingers into Tooru’s prostate as he works his tongue over Tooru’s cock, pulling unintelligible sounds from the body writhing beneath him.

Tooru melts quickly—Hajime’s hands practiced and efficient—and soon he’s squirming down onto Hajime’s fingers, and Hajime knows he’s ready.

“Condom?” he asks, his voice a little rough. He’s been neglecting his own cock as he works Tooru over, and the thought of finally sliding into Tooru’s got him rock solid and aching.

Tooru shakes his head, and Hajime’s brow creases.

“You prepared all this and forgot a condom?” he asks, surprised.

“No,” Tooru says, panting. “Don’t want one.”

White noise rings in Hajime’s ears as he tries to process what, exactly, Tooru has just said.

“Wait— You want me to— _Inside_? _Without_ a condom?” Hajime stammers. They’re both clean—physicals performed for volleyball season confirmed it, and neither of them has been with anyone else, but—

“Is— Is that okay?” Tooru asks. His legs fall back to the floor, and he licks his lips nervously.

Hajime dives for Tooru’s lips, crashing them together in a fervent prayer of adoration. “ _Yeah_ ,” he gasps out. “Yeah, it’s good.”

Tooru’s anxiety dissipates as quickly as it appeared, and he pushes his cock up against Hajime’s again. “Then why are you still wearing boxers?” he whispers coyly.

Hajime has never striped his underwear off so fast in his life.

He slicks lube onto his cock, stifling a strangled noise at the touch of his own hand. He lines himself up, and Tooru wraps his legs around Hajime’s middle once more. He finds Tooru’s lips with his own, and begins the slow push inside.

It’s intense. Tooru is hot, and so, so tight, and fucking without a condom apparently means heightened sensations that Hajime is wholly unprepared for. He pauses halfway through to gasp into Tooru’s neck as Tooru unintentionally clenches down on him.

“You gotta loosen up, baby, or I’m not gonna make it all the way inside before I’m coming,” he pants.

“’M not doing it on purpose,” Tooru replies breathily, concentrating on forcing his body to relax. “Just feels so _good_ , Haji—”

“ _Fuck_ , you do too,” Hajime groans, resuming his steady push inside. He bottoms out with a shudder, stopping for a minute so they both can catch their breath, and then when Tooru nods, he’s pulling out halfway and slowly sliding back home. “‘M not gonna last long,” he gasps.

“Same,” Tooru chokes out, and Hajime’s hips begin moving on their own accord. He shifts slightly, adjusting his angle, and maintains his momentum, his jaw hanging slack as he tries desperately to focus on pleasing Tooru.

He hits his prostrate twice, in rapid succession, and Tooru’s sharp inhale gets caught in his throat before breaking free as a moan, sudden and guttural, and it _does things_ to Hajime. He speeds up, thrusting deep and smooth, pulling nearly all the way out before he plunges back into the slick heat that’s driving him crazy, hitting Tooru’s sensitive spot again, and again. Tooru’s nails scratch along Hajime’s back, urging him faster as he cries out with each stroke, and Hajime claims Tooru’s lips again, sweeping his tongue into Tooru’s mouth in between heaving breaths.

He can feel the tension building in his gut, sinking lower with each thrust, winding him up, his pleasure a taut wire about to snap, so he reaches between them to wrap his hand around Tooru’s cock. His palm glides easily through Tooru’s precum as he drags it up, twisting his wrist over the head before sliding back down, timing it with his thrusts to bring Tooru closer and closer, and then Tooru’s arching underneath him and clenching— _hard_ —around him as he comes with a breathy ‘ _ah!_ ’ and Hajime tips over the edge himself, burying himself inside with strangled moan as his release washes over him, his hips stuttering as they work him through it.

Tooru whimpers when it becomes too much, and Hajime pulls out carefully, watching Tooru’s face for further discomfort. His legs and arms shaking, Hajime rolls to the side, his chest rising and falling with effort as he comes down from his orgasm.

“Warmed up enough?” he manages to ask, and Tooru’s hand flops aimlessly onto Hajime’s stomach in response.

“Getting there,” Tooru says hazily. “You should cuddle me next.”

“So demanding,” Hajime replies, pushing himself upright enough to grab his boxers. He moves to wipe Tooru clean first, but Tooru stops him.

“Towel and wipes under my clothes,” he mumbles, turning sated eyes lazily toward Hajime.

Hajime grabs them, shivering as chilly air hits his bare skin, and cleans them both quickly. He tosses the towel off to the side, the used wipes wrapped up in it for disposal later, and takes a moment to blow out the candles, then tugs Tooru’s underwear up his legs and under his ass, settling the elastic on his hips. He pats around for his boxers, pulling them on quickly, then settles back against his pillow.

He reaches for Tooru, tucking him into his side, and Tooru burrows in, wrapping himself around Hajime and letting out a satisfied hum.

Hajime lays there, content and drifting on the precipice of sleep, until he hears Tooru’s breathing even out. He turns his head to kiss Tooru’s temple, and then lets sleep claim him.

 

***

 

When Tooru wakes in the morning, his arm is asleep under Hajime’s sprawled, sleeping form, and his hip is _killing_ him from sleeping on it on the hardwood floor of the treehouse, but he’s happy, and he wouldn’t trade this moment for anything. He tucks his face against Hajime's chest, determined to ignore the rising sun, and lets the feeling roll through him, a wave washing through each of his limbs. It crests in a sigh, and Tooru squeezes his eyes closed tightly, holding on to it as long as he can.

Nothing in the world could possibly be better than feeling this loved.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my bestie, kiki: *whispers* treehouse sex  
> me: lol  
> kiki: no, really...treehouse sex?  
> me: no  
> me: NO  
> me: ...  
> me: _dammit_ , FINE. treehouse sex
> 
> thus, an epilogue was born...
> 
> ps, PLEASE ALWAYS PRACTICE SAFE SEX. ALWAYS. <3 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me! I love you all dearly, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for all your feedback and encouragement, whether it's through kudos or comments. I've never posted anything even remotely on the same scale as this before, and you've been the perfect audience. <3
> 
> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callie_ks) if you ever want to scream about volleydorks.
> 
> callie, out.  
> <3


End file.
